SBInet edges closer to cancellation

Another attempt by the government to create a high-tech border perimeter is faltering, especially after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's Tuesday announcement that she will freeze program spending.

DHS will divert $50 million in planned stimulus funding away from the effort, dubbed SBInet, to "tested, commercially available security technology along the Southwest border," Napolitano said in a March 16 statement. Also, DHS will freeze additional funding beyond two initial deployments in southern Arizona, pending the outcome of a review Napolitano initiated in January.

As of mid 2009, DHS's Customs and Border Protection has awarded 13 SBInet task orders worth approximately $1.1 billion to prime contractor Boeing. Boeing's original schedule called for full SBInet deployment along southern and northern borders by fiscal 2009, a date later postponed to 2016.

SBInet picks up more or less where its failed predecessor program, Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System, left off after its collapse in 2004, after consuming $429 million in funds. The goal of both programs has been to blanket U.S. borders with a chain of sensors, cameras and heat and motion detectors, allowing border patrol agents working from a common operational point to make targeted responses to incursions.

In announcing SBInet back in 2006, then DHS deputy secretary Michael Jackson told an industry audience that SBInet would not be "about simply buying gizmos." The performance-based, indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity contract, later won by the Boeing-led team, would reshape the way government monitors the border, Jackson said.

DHS asked for $574.17 million for the program in fiscal 2011, less than the $779 million appropriated in fiscal 2010.

Congress is promising more scrutiny over the program. In a statement, Rep. Bennie Thomson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said the committee will "consider whether SBInet can contribute to the security of our nation's borders."

"We are tired of listening to stories about faulty cameras, poor tower stability and overly sensitive sensors which have led to failed testing," he said.  

For more:
- see Homeland Security Department Secretary Janet Napolitano's statement
- see Rep. Bennie Thompson's (D-Miss.) statement
- check out the DHS fiscal 2011 budget brief (.pdf)
- see this 2009 GAO report on SBInet (.pdf)
- read a Washington Post article on the funding freeze
- read an Associated Press article

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