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 News from Around the Americas | October 2007 
Boeing Criticized Over Border Security Glitches
 Jim Wolf - Reuters
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| | The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is unveiled in Everett, July 2007. Boeing beat most forecasts by reporting a net profit rise of 61 percent to 1.1 billion dollars and lifted its outlook despite recently announced delays in its key 787 Dreamliner program. (AFP) |
Washington - Republicans and Democrats criticized Boeing Co and the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday for a belated, glitch-plagued security pilot program being set up along 28 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border.
The program is to create a mix of security infrastructure including fencing plus cameras, sensors and radar to help U.S. border patrol agents detect illegal entries.
"I'm afraid this is just another example of a contractor pitching the American public the end-all/be-all solution and instead, wasting taxpayer money to deliver nothing more than smoke and mirrors," said Rep. Christopher Carney, a Pennsylvania Democrat who heads the House of Representatives' Homeland Security subcommittee on management.
Boeing was chosen in September 2006 to lead the technology segment of a multiyear, multibillion-dollar program to secure U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada.
Project 28, as Boeing's $20 million demonstration system is known, is designed to showcase the technology's effectiveness for a larger Department of Homeland Security effort called the Secure Border Initiative, or SBInet.
"SBInet is not a new concept," said Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat. "It is the department's third border security technology program."
Boeing's pilot program is facing software integration and other problems more than four months after it was to have entered service, congressional investigators told a hearing of two Homeland Security subcommittees.
"Among several technical problems reported were that it was taking too long for radar information to display in command centers and newly deployed radars were being activated by rain, making the system unusable," Richard Stana of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office testified.
Chicago-based Boeing's work on the project "has not been accepted by the government and will not be accepted until Boeing resolves a number of integration and software issues," Gregory Giddens, head of SBInet, told the hearing.
A senior Boeing official, Roger Krone, testified: "Today, the system is substantially improved."
"The system is consistently able to slew to new radar targets and successfully record people crossing the border," said Krone, president of Boeing's network and space systems business unit. "Camera elevation difficulties have been fixed and a solution for radar display delays has been implemented."
Project 28's problems also drew barbs from the top Republicans on the subcommittee on management, investigations and oversight and the subcommittee on border, maritime and global counter-terrorism.
"The American people deserve better border security than what these millions of dollars have bought so far," said Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana, the top Republican on the border subcommittee.
Projected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to cost as much as $8.8 billion over the next six years, SBInet features ground-based and tower-mounted sensors, cameras and radar plus high-speed communications, command and control equipment and devices that detect tunnels. |
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