Thread: Reality Sets In For The Virtual Fence

Reality Sets In For The Virtual Fence
March 13, 2008: 06:57 PM EST


Mar. 5, 2008 (Investor's Business Daily delivered by Newstex) --

Homeland Security: The "virtual fence" that was supposed to help secure our borders will be delayed for years due to poor planning and technical difficulties. Unfortunately, terrorists and illegal aliens are quite real.

Remember the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which required the construction of 700 miles of new border fence? It required a real fence modeled on the success of the barriers in the San Diego sector of the U.S. border.

The operative word is "secure." The legislation specifically called for "two layers of reinforced fencing" and listed five specific sections of the border where it should be built.

Last year's omnibus spending bill removed the requirement for two tiers and the specific list of locations. But according to an amendment by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson that was adopted:

"Nothing in this paragraph shall require the secretary of homeland security to install fencing, physical barriers, roads lighting, cameras and sensors in a particular location along an international border of the United States, if the secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control over the international border at such location."

Hutchinson's office said the amendment merely gave DHS flexibility. What it provided was an excuse to do nothing and a license for open-border politicians to pressure DHS. DHS is on record as preferring in many instances "pedestrian fences" or "virtual fences," which are a look-but-can't-touch version of border security.

Well, guess what? The highly touted virtual fence doesn't work, or at least nobody at DHS can prove it works. And it'll take at least three more years to make it work. That's lot of illegal border crossings before the Department of Motor Vehicles, er, Homeland Security gets its act together.

Homeland Security spent $20 million to set up a 28-mile stretch of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear near Sasabe, Ariz. Last week, DHS officials and congressional auditors told a House subcommittee that technical problems will delay the project. Seems it didn't work as planned or meet the needs of the U.S. Border Patrol.

In fact, the Border Patrol wasn't even asked what its needs were in what is known as Project 28.

Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar told a hearing of two House homeland security subcommittees that a contract with Boeing (NYSE:BA) did not allow discussions on how the system would best fit his agency's needs.

He also said the Border Patrol didn't "have the means" to judge the system's effectiveness in reducing illegal border crossings.

The Bush administration has announced that completion of the first phase of the project will be delayed at least three years.

Investigators for the Government Accountability Office had warned that the project was beset with difficulties. They testified the problems require a redesign, and the first phase won't be completed until the end of the next president's first term.

Richard Stana, GAO director of homeland security issues, testified that Boeing's software could not handle large amounts of sensor data. Operators in Tucson, 65 miles away, had trouble locking cameras on targets. Radar systems were triggered by rain. Cameras couldn't resolve images at half the distance they were designed for.

We have an idea. The two-tier fence in San Diego runs 14 miles along the border with Tijuana, Mexico. It has no gadgets or gizmos. It's just a high steel fence, with an inner high anti-climb fence and a no-man's land in between.

And it's been amazingly effective.

According to a 2005 report by the Congressional Research Service, illegal alien apprehensions in the San Diego sector dropped from 202,000 in 1992 to 9,000 in 2004.

Build such a fence, and they won't come.



Newstex ID: IBD-0001-23757557

Originally published in the March 5, 2008 version of Investor's Business Daily.

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So much for Virtual apprehensions of Illegal Aliens.

Why do we tolerate Gross Incompetance of Bush and Chertoff

It is time for both to go out the door