The Virtual Wall Was Always A Dumb Idea

I missed this note about the more than one billion dollars spent on the "virtual wall" that the former administration initiated for our southern border. Seems like this administration is ready to stop wasting more federal funds against an idea whose time hadn't come yet.

Homeland chief Janet Napolitano beat the Government Accountability Office report to the punch when she announced Tuesday that she's freezing funding for the Secure Border Initiative Network.

Homeland Security hired The Boeing Co. 3 1/2 years ago to build a string of towers along the 2,000-mile border. The towers were to integrate off-the-shelf products — cameras, radar, connections to ground sensors — so that Border Patrol agents could see who and what was coming across in real time.

Boeing made big promises about SBInet's capabilities.

"Ninety to 100 percent of all illegal crossers, this camera system was going to identify and characterize this threat," said Rich Stana, who wrote a report on the project last year for the GAO.

Boeing built a 28-mile test section in the Southern Arizona desert. It didn't work. The company regrouped, redesigned and redeployed one set of towers near the first set. It is building another section right now. The entire border was supposed to be covered a year ago, but after three years — and $1.4 billion — the system is still full of bugs.

"Well, it sort of works," Stana said.

It "sort of works." I'm sure that al Qaeda's nuclear-bomb carrying terrorists will be glad to hear that. The recent GAO report is here. I don't think it's half as damaging as it could have been. Maybe the sponsoring congressperson told them go to easy on the project.

Along with defects revealed by system testing, Border Patrol operators participating in an April 2009 user assessment identified a number of concerns. During the assessment, operators compared the performance of Block 1 capabilities to those of existing technologies. While Border Patrol agents noted that Block 1 offered functionality above existing technologies, it was not adequate for optimal effectiveness in detecting items of interest along the border. Users also raised concerns about the accuracy of Block 1’s radar, the range of its cameras, and the quality of its video. Officials attributed some of the identified problems to users’ insufficient familiarity with Block 1; however, Border Patrol officials reported that the participating agents had experience with the existing technologies and had received 2 days of training prior to the assessment. The Border Patrol thus maintained that the concerns generated should be considered operationally relevant. 

Could that be any more clinically sterile? "Not adequate for optimal effectiveness in detecting items of interest." I guess that's the fancy way of saying "it sort of works." This was a billion dollar lemon that Boeing contractors oversold to the government, and propelled by congressmen interested in showing their dedication to homeland security, pushed for a really bad idea to be funded. This was always a dumb idea, trading off technology for promises of security.

Comments

[Thomas]

Trading off technology for actual security has been the arc of our intelligence and law enforcement communities for the last twenty years or more.

We've traded spies for satellites, snitches for listening devices and witnesses for cameras. Often this has been to our advantage. However, just as technology as plugged a number of information holes, others have opened as we've slowly abandoned human-based information gathering and manipulation.

[NVH]

Too bad we don't have enough humans to pull off hands across the rio grande.

This is DHS acquisition corps at its finest, which is run by ex State Governors unfamiliar with how to honcho an LSI contractor and the fact that DHS personnel are essentially 50% Boeing contractors at this point anyway...it's not a bad idea Jay, it's a good idea poorly executed, like before the Surge...it can work, and as I recall she's still letting them finish some 200 miles of it somewhere. I DO like that they are finally squeezing the reins on the GD contractors and all the shit they get away with, all those damn blogs those idiots have time to write on their down time, damn. I could just be livid b/c I have NO time to read all that dreck and have to rely on you to aggregate, which has its own problems...but here I am...

[J.]

"I DO like that they are finally squeezing the reins on the GD contractors and all the shit they get away with, all those damn blogs those idiots have time to write on their down time, damn."

Not to mention those tired-ass government workers who would rather surf the net and read blogs instead of adequately supervising said contractors...

[Ann Gaothin]

Gee...massive funding for technology whose time has not come...wasting taxpayer dollars to help people think they're more secure than they are...reminds me of another DoD program involving chemical weapons...

[Publius]

For going on 20 years now, Boeing has also been very heavily involved in the Army's ill-fated and bizarre FCS program, as well as its predecessors. A common thread in these efforts, courtesy of Ann Gaothin: "massive funding for technology whose time has not come..." Nothing ever delivered on time, nothing that ever worked as advertised.

With the help of inept and sometimes corrupt government acquisition folks, Boeing has made a successful transition from outstanding airframe developer to jack of all trades, master of none. Even their airframes are having problems now.

Why is this airframe outfit getting big contracts for ground vehicles and high-tech fences? Well, you see they wanted to "diversify," i.e., make more money, and they have a lot of friends in high places. That's all it takes these days. Expertise? We don't need no stinkin' expertise. All we need is low-ball bidding and friends to plus up the contracts.

Good news for Boeing is that the company sure has made a ton of money. Another success story for our times. Bad news for the taxpayer is that Boeing has made a ton of money.

[USAFREOD]

"Gee...massive funding for technology whose time has not come...wasting taxpayer dollars to help people think they're more secure than they are...reminds me of another DoD program involving chemical weapons..."

SHACK!!!

CBDEWS anyone? How about half of the CBDP? How about REALISTIC TRAs that don't inflate to support an ill-advised "transition" to put a 'bean' in JSTO's 'cup'??? Don't even get me started on the M50 (10 years for a "new mask" with no new technology), or JSLIST for that matter...

[J.]

Wow, demanding aren't you, USAFREOD? I would agree with you, but must note there is a difference between really dumb ideas (like TMTI and CBIPP) and just poorly managed ones (JSGPM, JSAM, JSLIST, any detection program in the CBDP). All comes back to holding project managers to account and making tough decisions, two qualities which seem to be very deficient within defense acquisition.