GAO: Border fence lagging, over budget--Home Security mismanaged project, report says

The Washington Times ^ | October 24, 2010 | Jerry Seper

[no-s]

Earned Value Management (EVM) reports submitted by Boeing to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were not reliable because they contained misleading information

HAHAHAHAHA! FTTFL! ROTFL! If they were using Earned Value to track and control this project, then they wanted to be misled, because EVM is a bogus technique. For those of you not familiar with gov't project management, it's a way to report progress based on how many hours were put into the project. It's typically used where the deliverable is something intangible (like software), and the project management office is clueless about how to set meaningful milestones. So they just give the contractor progress credit for hours worked. And pay them based on x% worked...

Other freepers may know better than me - is this typical for gov't run construction projects?

[HANG THE EXPENSE]

When the gubmint stated the use of a virtual fence I thought it was bullcrap then.Nothing beats boots on the ground and we are going to demand it from the screws in washington one way or another.

[FlyVet]

Virtual Fence was a fraud from the beginning IMO. There is no economically-feasible way to make something like that work over such rough terrain.

Security sensors are motion detectors. Some of them can be calibrated to detect human-sized motion, but that's about it. Human-sized motion includes trees and shrubs blowing in the breeze, blowing and drifting snow and dust, fog, heavy rain, clouds passing overhead and producing a moving shadow on the ground, legal human beings who happen to be near the border, game animals such as deer and bear, the list goes on and on.

I worked with such security systems for 8 years. Many times the newest gee whiz stuff, when tested in the real world, turned out to be "Oops. Didn't know that would happen."

Sensors work great in a relatively small, controlled environment. Over vast, uneven terrain like the border, not so much. You'd have to level it and remove all obstacles that play havoc with sensors. Something like a paved road with a fence on both medians. Over that distance, it would require a lot of manpower to respond to alarms, many of them false due to the fickle nature of sensors.

[jazusamo]

Agreed, there’s no way a system like that is going to work with hundreds and hundreds of miles of border.

With the cost over runs they’re having a good solid real fence would probably have been cheaper anyway.

Then they could just patrol it with A-10’s. LOL!

[HiJinx]

Ping!

[low TBO]

Keep tinkering with the non fence and leave the border open...great plan. I think this is the third contractor that has failed with their “proven” virtual fence.