Thread: AZ: Border fence delayed

Border fence delayed
Tech woes holding up virtual barrier at Sasabe
Sean Holstege
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 22, 2007 12:00 AM

Technical problems have delayed the launch of a high-tech virtual fence designed to secure a 28-mile stretch of Arizona's border with Mexico. The cutting-edge fence has been touted as the model for controlling 6,000 miles of frontier with Mexico and Canada.

The delay comes a week before the U.S. Senate is due to renew the supercharged debate over a proposed immigration-reform bill supported by both Arizona's senators.

The bill will live or die on how well the government can guarantee its ability to secure the border. Until the border is secured, key provisions dealing with visas and guest workers would not be enacted.
The virtual fence, a network of remote cameras and sensors around Sasabe, northwest of Nogales, is the first big test of that security-first promise. But in tests this month, the fence produced unreliable results. It was supposed to have been online by early July.

"It is our expectation that these glitches get fixed and fixed immediately. We are simply not going to provide a tool to our front-line people that's not ready," Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said.

Boeing Corp., which won the $20 million contract to install the fence, was to have it working by June 13. That date passed as Boeing's project manager, along with top officials with Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection, told Congress that everything was on track.

"At this point, we don't believe it will affect the overall schedule," customs spokesman Michael Friel said Thursday.

Boeing has installed all nine portable 98-foot towers, cameras, radar and ground sensors. It has fitted 50 patrol vehicles with computer links. Mobile and central command bases have also been linked to the network. The idea is to give front-line agents and commanders up-to-the-second pictures of all the activity in their areas.

But the cameras and sensors convey inconsistent information. Software glitches and integrating all the information have proved challenging.

"This is probably much more experimental than they've let on," said Donald Kettl, the director of the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, who has reported extensively and testified before Congress about the department's track record.

"As is often the case with Department of Homeland Security projects, it is a very hard problem, and they are trying cutting-edge technology."

He said the agency has consistently overrelied on technology since it was formed in March 2003. That makes it an agency overly dependent on contractors but without the expertise to manage them. The result has been anti-terrorism projects that slipped behind schedule and over budget.

The virtual fence is the first part of an overall plan called the Secure Border Initiative, or SBInet. Homeland Security's point man testified recently that SBInet will cost $8 billion and be done in 2013. But Congress' auditing division, the Government Accountability Office, has questioned the agency's planning, and the department's inspector general pegged the cost at closer to $30 billion.

Boeing referred all questions to the department.

Arizona politicians were surprised by word of the delays. Gov. Janet Napolitano said she had been assured last week that the project was on target.

"The department's failure to be forthcoming and the repeatedly slipping project deadlines . . . undermine the department's credibility with respect to this initiative," wrote Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. The two chair key House Homeland Security committees.

Reporter Matt Benson contributed to this article.

Reach the reporter at sean.holstege@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8334.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... 0622.html#

Why not install an actual fence? It's cheaper, easier, and more reliable. Behind the fence we can install motion sensors, cameras, etc. as a backup method.

Of course I am not an expert.

I haven't heard the Minuteman organization is having trouble building their fence.

CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN THIS?

A real fence would mean that the government is serious about securing our borders. A virtual fence is going to keep breaking down and a rock will put the fence down for a long time since it will take forever to get a repairman out. We don't need a virtual fence we need a fence.