Thread: Probe Faults System for Monitoring U.S. Borders

Probe Faults System for Monitoring U.S. Borders
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By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 11, 2005; Page A01

A critical network of cameras and sensors installed for the U.S. Border Patrol along the Mexican and Canadian borders has been hobbled for years by defective equipment that was poorly installed, and by lax oversight by government officials who failed to properly supervise the project's contractor, according to government reports and public and industry officials.

The problems with the $239 million Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS), which U.S. officials call crucial to defending the country against terrorist infiltrators, are under investigation by the inspector general of the General Services Administration.



A faulty camera is supposed to monitor the border crossing near Blaine, Wash. Many of the cameras had shoddy wiring, GSA found. (Jeff Vinnick For The Washington Post)

_____Faulty System_____

• Map of ISIS: Over eight years, contractors installed a high-tech network of cameras and sensors to help the U.S. Border Patrol spot and track intruders. Now U.S. officials and some contractors are under investigation for poor contract oversight and project overcharges.



_____Government IT News_____









That probe, into whether government officials allowed the contractor to cut corners on the project and receive huge overcharges during its eight-year lifetime, could lead to administrative or criminal charges, the officials said. Perhaps tens of millions of dollars were wasted, the GSA suggested.

Many irregularities were documented in a scathing GSA inspector general's report, released in December, which cited millions of dollars in potential overcharges by the contractor, International Microwave Corp. (IMC), as well as the record of U.S. officials paying for work never performed.

The investigation focuses in part on IMC's employment of the daughter of Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), a former Border Patrol official and key backer of the system of 12,000 sensors and several hundred cameras installed for the Border Patrol between 1998 and last year, officials said. There is no indication that Reyes took part in any impropriety, they said.

Investigators are looking into the past activities of the Connecticut-based firm, as well as the actions of some current and former officials of the Border Patrol; its former parent agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service; and GSA.

Many of the ISIS cameras, which are placed on 50- to 80-foot poles, break down frequently. The wiring of the electronic system on the Canadian border with Washington is so slapdash that cameras there often jerk randomly in warm weather.



"The contractor sold us a bill of goods, and no one in the Border Patrol and INS was watching," said Carey James, the Border Patrol chief in Washington state until 2001. "All these failures placed Americans in danger."

Controversy about the project led U.S. officials to stop almost all work on ISIS about 16 months ago, officials said.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, now the parent of the Border Patrol, acknowledge that there were serious technical and oversight problems with the ISIS program.

Homeland Security officials say the ISIS network of cameras and sensors is helpful in spotting intruders and guiding border agents in hot pursuit, but needs to be expanded. It covers only a few hundred miles of the 6,500-mile Canadian and Mexican borders, and can be evaded by crossing the border where there is no ISIS gear.

Roger Schneidau, who helps run the Border Patrol's electronic barrier programs, said that "there are sites in varying need of repair," but that in places where the equipment is available and working, "it's incredibly useful to agents."

Anthony Acri, IMC's president until 2003, said ISIS is well-built and was a good investment for taxpayers. He said oversight by U.S. officials was proper and effective. Acri said that the halt in work on ISIS "is very dangerous for our country."

Many -- but not all -- of the system's problems have been resolved in the past year by repair work done by L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., a New York firm that bought IMC in 2003, officials said. L-3 officials fired some IMC executives, including Acri, industry executives said.

Waste and Dysfunction

The story of ISIS, designed to monitor the large swaths of the nation's borderlands that agents cannot physically protect, is a tale of wasted taxpayer money and bureaucratic dysfunction.

The GSA inspector general's report said official inattention to the system "placed taxpayers' dollars and . . . national security at risk." A GSA inspection of eight Border Patrol zones found that $20 million had been paid to IMC for work there but that none of its camera systems was fully operating.

Near Buffalo, IMC billed the government for 59 cameras but only four were installed, and in Naco, Ariz., unassembled high-tech gear was found lying in the desert, the report said. "No IMC personnel had been on-site since the equipment was delivered" in 2003, the report added.

The most troubled part of ISIS was in Washington state, where the more than 64 cameras fogged up in cold and rain and sometimes broke down completely, according to Border Patrol officials and the GSA report. IMC-hired workers had done such shoddy wiring of fiber-optic cable at junction boxes that Border Patrol operators couldn't control the cameras, according to the officials and documents. Electrical wires were found corroding under water in supposedly sealed concrete vaults, they said.

The GSA report found that IMC was paid about $1 million up front to install 36 poles to hold multiple cameras in Washington state, but in fact had installed only 32. Contract documents executed by both GSA and the company "misrepresented the work that was actually furnished," it said.

It was common, the GSA report said, for the government to pay IMC "for shoddy work . . . [or] for work that was incomplete or never delivered."

IMC's Acri said the Washington project was "a nightmare" but blamed it on miscommunications with Border Patrol officials. L-3 has fixed many of the problems there recently, but Border Patrol agents still complain of malfunctions and blind spots.

The GSA inspector general's report also sharply criticized operations at a Border Patrol repair center in New Mexico staffed by two Border Patrol officials and 19 IMC employees. Many Border Patrol agents complained that repairs on the ISIS equipment they sent there took months to complete.

The GSA report said "little or no work" was done at the center in the previous year, even though IMC billed the government for $500,000 during that time. The report said millions of dollars in IMC overcharges might have occurred there.

The Border Patrol official who ran the center, David Watters, acknowledged he had a brother and a niece who worked for IMC. But he said his relatives' jobs did not affect his dealings with the company.

Watters said that the GSA report was unfair and that the center's slowdown in repairs was caused by the halt in ISIS work. IMC's Acri disputed some of the GSA's findings, saying it failed to accept his assertions that IMC did not profit improperly.

The GSA report and numerous government and industry executives said Border Patrol, INS and GSA officials -- most of whom lacked experience on complex contracts -- often deferred to IMC in deciding what equipment to buy and how much IMC should be paid. The GSA report said IMC's contracts with the government lacked detail, "thereby leaving interpretation of the government's needs up to the contractor."

"Government officials failed miserably to do their job," said Tim Golden, an IMC subcontractor on the program who later had a falling out with IMC. "It's incomprehensible how inept they were."

Many ISIS documents were drawn up in such a way that IMC was paid up front, and escaped financial liability if its performance was disputed, said the GSA report and U.S. officials.

Over the objections of Border Patrol officials, INS official Walter Drabik chose cameras distributed by a firm called ISAP. U.S. officials and contractors said IMC had bought the ISAP firm without disclosing it to U.S. officials. This allowed IMC to buy cameras from its own subsidiary, substantially increasing profits. Undisclosed self-dealing could be illegal.

The GSA report said officials' lax oversight of IMC's purchases of cameras and other gear "created a potential for overpayments of almost $13 million."

Acri and Drabik denied the allegations of overcharges, and both said Acri informed Drabik of IMC's purchase of the ISAP firm.

Family Ties

Drabik launched ISIS in 1996, a few months after the arrival in Washington of Rep. Reyes, a strong proponent of placing cameras on the border. Drabik chose the Alaska-based Chugach Development Corp. to install the system, and in 1999 he helped select IMC for a $2 million contract to succeed Chugach.

Drabik said in an interview that he recommended that first Chugach, then IMC, hire Rebecca Reyes, the congressman's daughter, as liaison to the INS. Both did so. Rebecca Reyes, 33, ultimately became IMC's vice president for contracts, and ran the ISIS program.

In 2001, her brother, Silvestre Reyes Jr., a former Border Patrol employee, was hired by IMC as an ISIS technician. He quit a few years later to form his own company.

A spokesman for L-3, where Rebecca Reyes now works, said she declined to comment, and her brother did not return repeated telephone calls seeking comment.

Rep. Reyes said that he never interceded with U.S. officials to help IMC win a contract and that he helped IMC retain congressional funding because he believes cameras "are an important part of our ability to defend the borders."

L-3 chief executive Frank C. Lanza said, "We have concluded Ms. Reyes hasn't done anything wrong or criticizable" at L-3. A Chugach spokesman declined to comment because the firm's executives who worked with Rebecca Reyes have left the firm.

Drabik said that he maintained an arms-length relationship with IMC and that he is proud of his achievements on ISIS. "The contracting procedures were all straight," he said.

In 2000, Drabik was removed from his job running ISIS. Drabik said during that period he had been investigated by superiors who expressed discomfort over his close dealings with IMC. But he denied that was the reason for his removal.

About that time, Congress threatened to eliminate the ISIS program, and IMC turned to Rep. Reyes and other allies to help rescue it, IMC's Acri said. Within months, INS and GSA officials granted IMC a contract expansion worth $200 million, with no competitive bidding.

Early last year, a small group of Border Patrol officials drew up plans for a far more ambitious multibillion-dollar project under which a contractor would cover the nation's land borders with an expanded network of cameras, sensors and high-tech devices.

The new project, called America's Shield Initiative, was enthusiastically endorsed in Congress and by the Bush administration.

"We've identified the problems; they're very evident," the Border Patrol's Schneidau said. "We're taking steps to prevent them from happening again."

The investigation focuses in part on IMC's employment of the daughter of Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), a former Border Patrol official and key backer of the system of 12,000 sensors and several hundred cameras installed for the Border Patrol between 1998 and last year, officials said. There is no indication that Reyes took part in any impropriety, they said.

How nice....always a little nepotism in the deals.

always a little nepotism

and a lot of despotism.

A critical network of cameras and sensors installed for the U.S. Border Patrol along the Mexican and Canadian borders has been hobbled for years by defective equipment that was poorly installed, and by lax oversight by government officials who failed to properly supervise the project's contractor, according to government reports and public and industry officials.

The first thing we need to do is turn the camera over and check the label. I bet it wasn't made in the USA! Who exactly is installing this equipment? Reminds me of the Border Patrol uniforms...weren't they being made in Mexico? And who could forget the illegals working at our airports and on our military base. How about our voting machines supposedly made in Venezuela? Not sure if I want to laugh or cry.