Free Republic

The troubled four-year-old federal program to install a virtual fence along the 2,000-mile U.S. border with Mexico is behind schedule and overbudget -- and the Department of Homeland Security is at least partly to blame, for not adequately policing contractor Boeing, a new watchdog report concludes. The department's Secure Border Initiative Network, or SBInet, is intended to utilize cameras, ground sensors and radars designed to let a small number of dispatchers watch the border on computer monitors, zoom in with cameras to see people crossing and decide whether to send Border Patrol agents to the scene. But the Government Accountability...

Janet Napolitano scraps U.S.-Mexico fence By JEN DIMASCIO | 3/16/10 7:14 PM EDT Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has put the brakes on SBInet, the $3 billion plan to build a virtual fence along the U.S. border with Mexico. “Not only do we have an obligation to secure our borders, we have a responsibility to do so in the most cost-effective way possible,” Napolitano said in a statement Tuesday. “The system of sensors and cameras along the Southwest border known as SBInet has been plagued with cost overruns and missed deadlines.” With that in mind, Napolitano is withholding funding for...

Homeland Security chief says that the program is not fully functional, but that security has improved. WASHINGTON -- -- A much-touted, high-tech system being tested along the border with Mexico failed to meet expectations and is being reworked, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday. Still, he said, border security has improved dramatically. Chertoff said that SBInet, which integrates cameras, radar and unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor the border, did not satisfy his department during initial tests and that he has asked Boeing, the contractor, to make improvements. The remarks came during a wide-ranging and occasionally contentious hearing before the...