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It has only taken ...6 odd years....

For those of you hoping for hordes of drones and blimps to start patrolling the Mexican and Canadian borders, there’s bad news this morning. “After a face-off among large military contractors, the Boeing Company was picked by the Homeland Security Department to lead a high-tech effort to secure borders,” the Times reports. And unlike proposals from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and others, Boeing’s plan for the Secure Border Initiative, or SBInet, doesn’t rely that much on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or airships.

“Boeing’s proposal relied heavily on a network of 1,800 towers, most of which would need to be erected along the borders with Mexico and Canada. Each tower would be equipped with a variety of sensors, including cameras and heat and motion detectors,” the Washington Post notes.

The article you link us to is over six years old, and since that time I’ve read other articles explaining the failure of that Boeing system in so much as a small thing called reality. Apparently the theoretical didn’t work in such application due numerous unforeseen obstacles, and billions of dollars were spent to no avail as I recall. Sorry I don’t have a link. I just remember reading about this initially as similar to your link, and subsequent reading as the project progressed unto the failure that it became.

Also sticking in my memory banks is the assault on Boeing by this administration when Boeing moved specific operations into the South to avoid union contracts forced upon them in Washington State. It is my understanding the relations between Boeing, and Obama have yet to be resolved favorably, therefore I wouldn’t believe Obama’s going to be in too much of a mood to grant Boeing anything until they totally knuckle under to the boss.

I don’t see how this Administration would be in favor of extending any such contracts much less from that period at this time as we approach unresolved sequestration.