Thread: Lucent to Help Seal U.S. Borders

http://www.njbiz.com/weekly_article.asp ... aID2=68579

Lucent to Help Seal U.S. Borders
A federal security effort enlists private-sector technology
Thomas Gaudio
NJBIZ Staff
10/2/2006

MURRAY HILL - Lucent Technologies has a mission for Bell Labs, its research and development arm: Get wireless devices to work whether they’re overshadowed by trees in a dense forest or creating shadows under a searing desert sun.
The Murray Hill-based company is tapping its R&D wellspring after being selected last month to a team of firms led by Boeing. The Chicago-based aerospace giant has a contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to fortify the country’s borders with a high-tech surveillance system. The project, called SBInet, is the technology and infrastructure portion of the DHS’s 2005 Secure Border Initiative, a multipronged plan to seal off from illegal immigrants and terrorists the 6,000 miles of border that the United States shares with Canada and Mexico.

Lucent’s assignment will be to help create a fast and reliable way for Office of Border Patrol agents to communicate among themselves, with Border Patrol stations along the north and south of the country, and with local authorities, says Gary Monetti, director of strategic alliances at Lucent. “We will serve a network integration role with a strong emphasis on wireless technology,” he says. “We take a lot of applied science and intellectual property from Bell Labs.”

Boeing’s Integrated Defense Systems unit, which also produces military aircraft, antisubmarine warfare systems and other defense products, will lead the border-tech consortium under a three-year deal that has three additional one-year options. Phase one of SBInet will focus on a 28-mile stretch separating the Tucson, Ariz., region from Mexico, a location DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff called “one of the most heavily trafficked areas along the southern border.” Plans call for phase one to be completed in May 2007. Chertoff and officials from Boeing spoke Sept. 21 at a press briefing in Washington, D.C.

This first stage will cost $67 million, according to the DHS. Reports have pegged the full price tag of SBInet at around $2 billion, but Chertoff says, “if we can get if for less than $2 billion, we’ll get it for less than $2 billion.”

Monetti says there has been no discussion of how money will be distributed among the 10 participating companies. Other members of the consortium include the Surveillance & Reconnaissance Group of Parsippany-based DRS Technologies and

L-3 Communication Systems West in Salt Lake City.

Lucent’s offerings look to become part of a Boeing-proposed tool kit of technologies that would be adaptable to the varying circumstances posed by the security effort. “One of the big challenges along the Canadian border is the density of the forest,” says Monetti. “At the Mexican end, we have very high temperatures but a pretty open area.”

Donald Sebastian, vice president for research and development at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Newark, says SBInet will most likely set the gold standard for how open-air surveillance is done in the future. NJIT leads, in partnership with Rutgers-Newark, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Jersey City University, Picatinny Arsenal and Fort Monmouth, the state’s Homeland Security Technology Systems Center that is responsible for evaluating and prototyping technologies required to ensure the state’s safety and security.

All of SBInet’s technology must be proven effective in any conditions under which it may be used, says Chertoff. “We’re not interested in performing science experiments on the border,” he says.

But not every inch of country line calls for sophisticated gear, says Monetti. “Some areas inherently, because of their terrain, secure themselves. There are some very remote desert areas where there’s no food and water for hundreds and hundreds of miles. There’re no little towns where [illegal immigrants and terrorists] can pop in and seek harbor,” he says. “Other areas will be secured with traditional gates and fencing and things of that nature. Then there’ll be the areas where we actually stand up the [wireless] network.”

Such a network would connect hand-held devices carried by Border Patrol agents with other agents and with the stations via fixed and portable towers. There are about 12,000 Border Patrol agents across the country, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The gadgets would allow for voice communication and the delivery of data gathered by sensors, including cameras and radar on the ground and aboard unmanned flying vehicles. The DHS says that some transmission towers and detection equipment already in place from previous projects may be integrated into the program.

Not everyone sees an answer in gadgetry. The money being spent for SBInet should be going to less technical measures, says Bruce Schneier, founder and chief technical officer of Counterpane Internet Security, a services and consulting company based in Mountain View, Calif.

“To me, securing our border with technology is kind of a hopeless cause because we have such a massive border and it’s enormously expensive [to try to secure it],” he says. “I would prefer, from a security perspective, to see the money go to investigation, intelligence and emergency response. Those are effective measures.”

Schneier, who has worked on security and cryptography projects at Bell Labs and the U.S. Department of Defense, says illegal immigration is a political football, not a security issue, and that it doesn’t warrant such an investment of tax dollars. “You don’t spend billions of dollars on illegal immigrants. That’s moronic.”

As for the threat of terrorists sneaking into the United States through its borders, he says “most of the 9/11 terrorists got into the country not by sneaking in but by walking in through regular channels, so a secure border won’t help” when it comes to fighting terrorism. “Terrorists are adaptable,” says Schneier. “If you defend against it [securing the border], they’ll come in some other way.”

All of that equipment is there for three reasons, says Chertoff. “First of all, we want to detect intrusions. We want to be able to know when anybody or anything is crossing that border. Second, we want to characterize and identify the intrusion. We don't want to send the Border Patrol chasing coyotes—meaning four-legged coyotes—that are coming across the border. We want them chasing people who are coming across the border,” he says. “And finally, detection and characterization only make sense if there's actual interdiction and apprehension. So there's got to be real-time communication with the operators and an ability to help them determine the most effective way to do their interception of those who are illegally coming across our borders.”

E-mail to tgaudio@njbiz.com

Flaw #1

But not every inch of country line calls for sophisticated gear, says Monetti. “Some areas inherently, because of their terrain, secure themselves. There are some very remote desert areas where there’s no food and water for hundreds and hundreds of miles. There’re no little towns where [illegal immigrants and terrorists] can pop in and seek harbor,” he says. “Other areas will be secured with traditional gates and fencing and things of that nature. Then there’ll be the areas where we actually stand up the [wireless] network.”

So is Boeing...

What a bunch of crap, all so their budies can get richer off taxpayers money. They'll do anything to keep from doing it right.