Saturday, January 15, 2011

Boeing drops the ball again on SBInet for border security

Boeing drops the ball again on SBInet for border security


Boeing’s SBInet was supposed to be the ultimate in anti-illegal immigrant technology: miles of surveillance-radar towers (colloquially, “Cameras on a Pole”) hooked up to ground-based sensors that detected the heat of someone’s footprints or the metal of a border-crossing vehicle. Sound impractical? That’s what the GAO Government Accountability Office found in October, when it lamented SBInet’s “well-chronicled history of not delivering promised capabilities and benefits on time and within budget.”


It only took nearly a year of hiatus and $1 billion in sunk costs, but the Department of Homeland Security has finally gotten rid of the networked suite of sensors that made up its virtual border fence. But some of its technology may live on as zombie border protection.


The virtual fence “cannot meet its original objective of providing a single, integrated border-security technology solution,” Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded in a statement today heralding the program’s termination.

see more on info on Boeing's failures to deliver on promises at the GAO office report
see actual GAO report on Boeing failures and promises



see more info at
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/homeland-security-junks-its-sensor-laden-border-fence/

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