Report: Plan for border surveillance system posed too many risks

The Homeland Security Department was correct to re-evaluate a comprehensive border surveillance program, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.

The GAO report, released Thursday, found that the department would have assumed unacceptable risks had it not decided to review the America's Shield Initiative, a program to install a network of sensors, cameras and databases at entry points along the northern and southern U.S. borders. Homeland Security officials called for an evaluation of the program in September.

Steps to ensure ASI's effectiveness with the department's technology framework revealed additional concerns as the initiative moved beyond early deployment, according to the report.

"The department's decision to re-evaluate the program was justified by the existence of unresolved key issues that, if not addressed, would have introduced unnecessary and unacceptable risk," the report said.

According to GAO, the department had not properly established personnel protocol and management processes needed to oversee ASI effectively. The report said that roles and responsibilities had only been clearly defined for three positions charged with managing the initiative as of August.

Organizational responsibility for the ASI office was placed within Homeland Security's bureau on customs and border protection. The office was established in September 2004.

Congress provided $31 million for ASI in fiscal 2006. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a House committee last July that he intended to make sweeping changes to ASI before the department announced its plans to review the program later that year.

In written comments, Homeland Security officials said the GAO analysis was factually correct in most aspects, and the department intends to reassign ASI personnel to other initiatives.

Steven Pecinovsky, the director of the department's GAO liaison office, said he agreed with the majority of the report's comments, even though it did not include any recommendations on how to fix ASI's problems.

In a letter to GAO, Pecinovsky said that Homeland Security agrees with the "overall thrust of the report" and that it identities "key issues regarding effective program management" of ASI.

Pecinovsky also said the department has suspended work on ASI and redirected resources to the Secure Border Initiative, a multiyear plan announced by Chertoff last November.