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/

Boeing can't deliver a $1.1 billion border fence?

Boeing can't deliver a $1.1 billion border fence?


The Department of Homeland Security's latest version of a border "virtual fence" has suffered another setback — prompting Secretary Janet Napolitano to order a departmentwide reassessment of the program.
Officials expected to have a 17-tower system up and working along 23 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border flanking Sasabe by the end of 2009, but the handover to the Border Patrol has been delayed at least three more months. The Sasabe grid is the first in a series of virtual fences planned for the Southwest border.
In the fall of 2009, Napolitano directed the acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to evaluate the SBInet program, according to a statement e-mailed from Napolitano.
"As his analysis uncovered unacceptable delays, last Friday I ordered a departmentwide reassessment of the program to consider options that may more efficiently, effectively and economically meet our border security needs," Napolitano said in the statement. "Americans need border security now — not 10 years down the road. I am committed to ensuring that our border security programs are timely and cost-effective."
From 2006 through July 2009, Customs and Border Protection paid Boeing Co. $1.1 billion to create and build a border-long network of camera, sensor and radar towers, the Government Accountability Office reported in September.



see org article at....
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/metro/325016.php