GovernmentExecutive.com

The chairman of the House committee overseeing the Homeland Security Department today called on the department to not pay a contractor for the first phase of work on the electronic border fence until it can prove it works as promised.

Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, sent a letter to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff asking him to defer payment for the first phase of the Secure Border Initiative Network (SBInet). Under that phase, known as Project 28, DHS is erecting a high-tech surveillance system consisting of radars, cameras and ground sensors connected by a wireless and satellite network along a 28-mile section in southern Arizona.

"It is my understanding that the department is in the final stages of determining whether to accept formally SBInet's Project 28 and to commit the United States to paying the full contract amount of $20 million," Thompson wrote. "I urge you to defer acceptance until you are certain that Project 28 performs as it was originally billed, i.e., an operational tool that will help the Border Patrol secure our nation's borders.

"I am concerned that, in Project 28's current state, this will not be the case," Thompson continued. "Neither the committee's last visit to the Tucson, Arizona area, nor the Oct. 24, 2007, joint subcommittee hearing resolved our concerns. Indeed, they only raised new questions."

Project 28 is the first task order under the SBInet program. In September 2006, DHS awarded the SBInet contract, worth a total of $2.5 billion, to Boeing Co. Neither Boeing nor DHS has disclosed the fine details of the SBInet architecture. (See "Vast Expanse," Government Executive, April 1.)

Boeing was supposed to turn over Project 28 to the Customs and Border Protection bureau in June. But Boeing missed the deadline due to a variety of technical problems, including systems integration, rain activating radars and a long lag time to display video images from field cameras to a command center, the Government Accountability Office reported in October.

In September, Chertoff said he would withhold payment to Boeing until the company worked out the bugs in the system. SBInet also has experienced information security weaknesses.

In his letter, Thompson said he is concerned that Project 28 will provide Border Patrol with "little, if any, functionality, it did not already possess" and said the committee has "started to hear suggestions that Project 28 was a 'demonstration project' or a 'test bed' for future technologies."

Thompson said calling Project 28 a test bed is inconsistent with what CBP officials claimed when the project was announced. CBP officials "continually and repeatedly described Project 28 as the 'first operational order awarded under SBInet,'" according to the Thompson letter. Boeing officials, he added, stated that Project 28 "would arm the Border Patrol with data information they never had before."

If the expectations are not likely to be met, Thomson told Chertoff that "Congress must be alerted immediately. ... As it now appears, the technological problems encountered are such that Project 28 has become more of a technology test bed, than a new operational tool for the Border Patrol, and the department needs to address this need directly."

Thompson raised the possibility that the project could affect Chertoff's credibility. "I am as disturbed by this apparent lack of candor and the attempt to 'spin' Project 28's trouble as I am with the technical difficulties you have experienced with the initiative," he wrote. "Technological problems can be fixed. Credibility, once lost, is unlikely ever to be regained."

DHS did not return calls for comment by deadline. Boeing deferred to DHS for comment.

Information available on the Boeing SBInet Web site and from residents of Arivaca, Ariz., a border-town site for one of the SBInet's 90-foot towers, indicates Boeing intends to use both terrestrial wireless systems and satellite communications to relay camera and sensor data to central command posts.

Jon Healy, director of Techno Patriots, an Arizona-based volunteer group that has developed a system of cameras to monitor the border, said "if I had the money, I could have installed a wireless infrastructure for the government in a month."

Healy said it took him two years to install a five-tower wireless network, which covers 1,600 miles of Cochise County in Southern Arizona.

Though the Techno Patriots system lacks the radars and ground sensors used by Boeing, Healy said it still features high-quality video and thermal imaging cameras at a cost of about $100,000. Healy added that Techno Patriots built its wireless system around commercial and proprietary Wi-Fi systems.

COMMENTS

• Does this mean, "If you build it, they won't come"? Field of Dreams Posted December 11, 2007 11:20 AM
• My late father in law was chief of training of the Border Patrol. My wife was an immigration officer. My last job before retiring was as a consultant to INS. I learned in 1999 that fully 80 percent of the cameras and sensors on the Mexican Border were broken, had been broken for months or years, and were never going to be fixed. That was the virtual fence then. The virtual fence now will suffer the same fate. Bush hates the Border Patrol and wants it to get out of the way. The only thing that will stop illegal entries will be an impenetrable barrier with say 50 legal crossing points in it. That way the Border Patrol does not have to come into contact with border jumpers away from the checkpoints. Avoiding contact is vital because if a BP agent injures a border jumper he gets punished and the jumper gets away with a lot of money. The US has barrier technologies that would keep even Mexican cockroaches out. I used to be OMB budget examiner for nuclear weapons and B-52 security. I know that barrier technologies properly done can be foolproof. Don Jones Posted December 7, 2007 7:38 PM
• Thank you for your article on Boeing's failure to deliver on their SBInet border surveillance system. As a remote operator of Techno Patriots' border camera system I can tell you that a workable system can and is being done at far less cost than standard government contractors are charging. Sitting in my home in Papillion, Nebraska (just a few miles from Offutt AFB, home of StratCom) I am able to monitor known smuggling routes in southern Arizona which is the busiest smuggling area of our whole southern border. Knowing my camera location, having a pinpointed Google Earth image with all roads labeled, and the local Cochise County U.S. Border Patrol phone number in my cell phone speed dial, when a suspected intruder or smuggler is detected I can notify the local BP and guide them to their target with real-time video surveillance that refreshes on my screen within 1 to 2 seconds of commands to move the camera. I've tracked cars moving at highway speed from 1/2 mile away from the time they enter my field of view until they are out of range of the camera. The reported reaction time of the SBInet system is 30 to 40 seconds which is enough lag time to allow the target, even walking, to be lost from view by moving behind brush or other obstacles. Techno Patriots is demonstrating a system that can and does work. It simply needs to be embraced and supported by those that have the means and connections to fully implement it all across our borders. Thank you for bringing this project to the attention of the public. E Kubr Posted December 7, 2007 5:44 PM