Southern Border wingnut/'Bagger/Minutemen hysteria exposed: Virtual fence goes poof!1

[UTUSN]

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/immigration/7260409.html

Feds scrapping 'virtual' border fence work
High-tech security project ending after nearly $1 billion spent

By STEWART M. POWELL
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is preparing to scrap plans to extend the high-tech "virtual" border fence along vast stretches of the 1,969-mile U.S.-Mexico border, ending a troubled and politically contentious security measure inaugurated in 2006 by then-President George W. Bush, the Houston Chronicle learned Friday.

The decision, expected to be announced shortly by the Department of Homeland Security, comes after federal authorities poured nearly $1 billion into a four-year, post-9/11 demonstration project to show that state-of-the-art remote cameras and ground sensors could help U.S. Border Patrol agents intercept undocumented immigrants, drug smugglers or potential terrorists surreptitiously crossing the border.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona keenly familiar with the technical problems afflicting the project, first signaled plans to scrub the "invisible fence" with a series of internal decisions in recent weeks that shifted the year-to-year contract with the prime contractor to a month-to-month contract due to expire on Nov. 21. ....

The watchdog congressional agency recently concluded that Boeing, the prime contractor for the Secure Border Initiative network, had not provided accurate updates on progress to the administration and the DHS had provided inadequate oversight of Boeing, leading to "costly rework" efforts. ....



Two sites in Arizona

The 53 miles of high-tech surveillance equipment along the border at two locations in Arizona were designed to augment nearly 700 miles of pedestrian fencing and vehicle barriers built by the Bush administration and finished by the Obama administration along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Customs and Border Protection has completed construction of 649 miles of the 652 miles of pedestrian fencing and vehicle barriers authorized by Congress. ....

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[sharp_stick]

1. I always thought this was a simple

corporate welfare thing. Boeing has no real interest in developing a real virtual fence system but this sure as hell gave the stockholders some extra dough while we waited for the POS to fail as spectacularly as it did.

[UTUSN]

2. Succinct and elegantly said. n/t

[robdogbucky]

3. Derailed Homelanders' Insider Gravy Train

Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Border Patrol gives contract to firm stocked with former insiders
Los Angeles Times
September 21, 2010
by Ken Dilanian

"The Border Patrol wants its leaders to talk to one another, and the agency is willing to pay some former government employees nearly half a million dollars to help make that happen. In an example of how common it has become for government agencies to outsource seemingly routine tasks to former officials, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has awarded a "strategic consulting" contract worth up to $481,000 over five years to a small firm staffed by former agency insiders...

...Among those who will benefit from the contract are the agency's former commissioner and the husband of a current agency spokeswoman. It's legal as long as the officials observe a one-year ban on landing work from their former agency...

...After a competition, the contract was awarded to Sentinel HS Group, a 12-person company that includes Robert C. Bonner, commissioner of U.S. Customs and then U.S. Customs and Border Protection from September 2001 to November 2005.

The firm, which reported annual revenue of $3.2 million in contract documents signed last week, was founded by one of Bonner's top aides and includes three other former agency officials…”

http://borderwallinthenews.blogspot.com/2010/09/border-patrol-gives-contract-to-firm.html



Look behind the curtain, people.



Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky