A $20 million, 28-mile prototype ‘virtual’ fence built by Boeing, and developed to thwart illegal immigration along the Mexico-U.S. border hasn’t met border control agents’ needs, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported.
However, the federal government has no plans to scrap the program as recently reported by the mainstream press, said Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Laura Keehner.
The towers — the backbone of the test project known as Project 28 — have been operational for about three months but have failed to meet expectations since going up in summer 2007. But, “It would be wrong to conclude that the federal government is scrapping the virtual fence,” said Keehner.
The P-28 virtual fence project uses a series of electronic, wireless devices to detect movement along the 28-mile stretch near Tuscon, Ariz. The GAO said its main shortcoming is the lapse time between the electronic detection of individuals illegally crossing the border and the data reaching hand-held devices and border-control personnel.
Wayne Esser, Boeing’s director of strategic development for the Secure Border Initiative program that developed the fence, said the prototype uses off-the-shelf hardware and software to track illegal immigration activities. It currently consists of communication technologies that include sensors and radar systems housed on a series of mobile towers. The data then are transmitted over a restricted, wireless network to border-control agents, he said.
“Part of the problem was that the [technologies] were put in on a temporary basis, and so we didn’t put up the full communications system. We used a slower satellite system because of the costs and timing because we would not have been able to meet the schedule if we tried to put up the full system,” Esser said.
“We’re not using the cellular networks because, in most of the [rural area] along the border, there just aren’t any,” Esser said. “We looked at it and talked to several of the major cell-phone operators to look at the economics of actually using cellular and installing it—and it’s just not there.”
The next phase of the system that includes the erection of fixed towers as well as microwave communication systems and will be deployed in late summer, Esser said.
GovTech reviews Chicago’s new Crime Prevention Information Center (CPIC). A gunshot detection system recognizes and tapes the sound of gunfire and alerts the center’s staff, providing a street address through triangulation. The ultimate goal of a fusion center is to prevent terrorist attacks and to respond to natural disasters instantaneously (video).
In the first phase of Washington DC’s camera system about 4,500 cameras will be focused on schools, public housing, traffic and government buildings.
New York has hundreds of cameras scanning Lower Manhattan, watching tunnels, bridges, and the thousands of cars and people that move through the country’s financial hub. The implementation of the plan, called the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, will require about $90 million and cost about $8 million a year to maintain.
Dailywireless has more on the Secure Border Initiative and Chicago Networks 3000 Cameras.
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