Systemic Flaws in High-Tech Border Security

(Second of two parts on virtual fence, new and proposed.) 

Before rushing ahead with another high-tech fix for our so-called “border security,” the Obama administration should take a hard look at the conceptual and strategic failures of the SBInet. 

It wasn’t just technical glitches and management shortcomings that  doomed SBInet.

A series of blistering reports from DHS’ own inspector general and the Government Accountability Office, as well as a barrage of criticism from the various congressional committees that oversee DHS, warned that SBInet was a bust. The reports noted that Border Patrol never offered any clear definition of the project, a credible price estimate or strategic plan. (See: Fallacies of High-Tech Fixes for Border Security.) The “system of systems” was plagued by cost overruns, technical glitches, and repeated schedule delays.

Typical of the abstract language describing the SBInet concept, DHS said it represented “a systematic approach to deploy technological tools in stages, allowing each stage to build on the success of earlier stages.” And the objective is “to provide a clear common operating picture (COP) of the border environment within a command center environment, which will provide commonality within DHS components and interoperability with stakeholders outside DHS.”

In the end, DHS concluded that “the original concept for SBInet does not meet current standards for viability and cost-effectiveness” and that the “SBInet system is not the right system for all areas of the border and it is not the most cost-effective approach to secure the border.”

According to DHS, the “independent, quantitative, science-based assessment of the SBInet program” that it commissioned “demonstrated that SBInet is not the most efficient, effective and economical way to meet our nation's border security needs.” 


No doubt. As any observer knew, SBInet was shot through with flaws – the least of which were technological – from its start in November 2005.

The Napolitano-mandated assessment, according to DHS, concluded that SBInet did not “have the capability to provide a one size fits all integrated technological solution to border security.”  DHS reported that SBInet research and development “generated some advancements in technology,” but, rather than seeking new technological platforms, DHS will in the immediate future “utilize existing, proven technology solutions tailored to the distinct terrain and population density of each border region.”

The scandal of insider contracts, scant oversight, and technological failure in electronic surveillance on the border predates SBInet.  Between 1997 and 2006, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and DHS spent $439 million on two electronic surveillance projects that were largely abandoned because of system failures.

These were the Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS) and its successor, America’s Shield Initiative. The General Services Administration and DHS’s Office of Inspector General OIG issued blistering reports about ISIS and America’s Shield, prefiguring more recent governmental critiques of SBInet.

New High-Tech Solution Moves Forward Without Sufficient Consideration

DHS says that the new search for a high-tech solution for border security “recognizes that we must effectively deploy a wide range of proven technology along the Southwest border to best meet our nation’s pressing border technology needs and complement this administration’s unprecedented investment in manpower, infrastructure and resources to secure the Southwest border.”

It should be remembered that, as DHS presses forward with its new border technology plan, SBInet was also initially scheduled to use only proven, off-the-shelf technology. Boeing did attempt to cobble together different systems into one system, but little worked as planned.

Then, when it tried to create a unique technology platform, Boeing had little success. The system couldn’t distinguish between a person and a bush swaying in the wind. It didn’t get close to establishing a common operating picture for the Border Patrol.

As it moves quickly toward a new high-tech plan, DHS hasn’t acknowledged that its “system of systems” had underlying systemic flaws – namely, the failure of DHS to focus on real security threats, the outsourcing of border security projects (including its oversight and management) to private contractors, and the failure of DHS to submit the hugely expensive project (projected $8 billion) to a cost-benefit assessment. Such an assessment would attempt to measure the margin of increased security resulting from new border security programs against their cost. 

If DHS doesn’t change its ways (and it has said or done little to indicate any change in operations) then the newly initiated high-tech plan for border security will surely end like its predecessors – monuments to fallacies of high-tech solutions to challenges of managing our border with Mexico.

For more information see:

CIP International Policy Report: Fallacies of High-Tech Fixes for Border Security, April 2010

http://www.ciponline.org/CIP_Publications/1004_TBP.pdf

Catching "Our Adversaries" with New Virtual Fence

(First of two parts on virtual fence, old and newly proposed.) 

The virtual fence is dead. Long live the virtual fence!

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Jan. 14, 2011 that DHS was cutting of funding for Secure Border Initiative Network (SBInet). I DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff in November 2005 introduced the new remote surveillance system – what he called a “virtual fence” that would include not only a system of electronic detection but also a communications system that would enable a quick response to illegal border crossings.

Homeland Security says has spent about a billion dollars on SBInet – with only the detritus of a dysfunctional Boeing surveillance project southwest of Tucson to show for all that spending. Virtual fence, indeed.

The DHS called SBInet a “system of systems.” But it turned out to be a major technological and bureaucratic bust – which system’s critics, including congressional committees and governmental monitoring agencies, had been saying for the past three years.

DHS, however, has not given up on finding a high-tech fix for border security. Several days after shuttering the dysfunctional SBInet, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the DHS agency that includes the Border Patrol, took the first step toward creating a SBInet II. The new technology plan is based on an “Analysis of Alternatives” ordered last year by Napolitano.

CBP issued a Request for Information (RFI) on Jan. 18, 2011 for vendors interested in participating in a new high-tech plan for border security.  The RFI asks vendors for information about existing surveillance and communications technology that could be part of a system of “integrated fixed towers” along the border.  

Towers with cameras and communications devices were the main feature of the failed SBInet pilot projects in southern Arizona. 

But Boeing proved utterly unable to create a virtual fence – a technological platform for border security that would detect illegal entries, communicate actionable information back to Border Patrol “command center,” and then quickly relay information about illegal border crossers to Border Patrol agents in the field.

In its goal of providing “automated, persistent wide area surveillance for the detection, tracking, identification, and classification of illegal entries,” the new technological plan for border security differs little from its failed predecessor.  

CBP is, however, attempting to distinguish the new plan from SBInet and the remote electronic surveillance projects that preceded it by stating that the proposed system will be adaptable to varying conditions along the nearly 2,000-mile border and that it will be based not on new technology developed for the project but on “off-the-shelf” technology from the private and public sectors.

Another important difference is that the CBP is seeking information as the first step rather than simply turning over the project to a contractor based on solely on company promises and assurances.

Containing “Our Adversaries”

But there are worrying signs that CBP’s new initiative will continue its unfortunate history of seeking high-tech fixes for a problem that it hasn’t even defined.  The DHS and CBP have committed to ensuring border security but offer no definition of the term or a strategy on how to achieve a secure border. As a result, all illegal crossborder entries are regarded as security breaches and threats to the homeland.

In this security paradigm, immigrants seeking work and packages of smuggled marijuana are security threats just as are terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.

This unfocused vision of border security leads to unfocused, ineffective, and wasteful projects.

DHS says the new technology plan will provide “flexible capabilities that will enable the Border Patrol to move and adapt to the threat.” The undifferentiated threat encompasses all illegal border crossings. So enraptured with -- and blinded by -- the post-9/11 security/military framework for border control that DHS labels illegal border crossers as “adversaries.”

Describing the new plan in its “Report on the Assessment of the SBNnet Program,” DHS attempts to assure us that its proposed high-tech border security plan won’t repeat the mistakes of past programs that merely shifted the flows of immigrants and illegal drugs to new corridors: The Department recognizes that, as we tighten the security of one area, our adversaries will attempt to find new routes in other areas.”

It’s no wonder that our nation’s institutions of homeland security and border security – as well as the concepts shaping their operations – have come under such harsh criticism.

Border security hawks insist that all illegal intrusions threaten our security and sovereignty. But DHS and CBP should have a more strategic view of border control – one where immigrants and smuggled marijuana wouldn’t be regarded as “adversaries.”

CBP does say – as it state previously with its Secure Border Initiative -- that its new system will “identify and classify these entries to determine the level of threat involved.”  That would certainly be an amazing high-tech achievement – identifying terrorists and terrorism weapons through remote electronic surveillance – but an unlikely one.

If Congress believes that, then DHS may also have a bridge it could sell it the credulous senators and representative who allocated billions of dollars for one border security initiative after another without demanding any evidence that these would indeed improve our security. 

For more information see:

CIP International Policy Report: Fallacies of High-Tech Fixes for Border Security, April 2010

http://www.ciponline.org/CIP_Publications/1004_TBP.pdf