Senators slam border control technology

In his opening statement at the April 20 meeting of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, committee chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) highlighted both the importance of using “technology to control the border” as well as the failure of technology already in use to do so.

“When the ‘virtual fence,’ or SBInet, was first launched, we were told that it would be extended across our entire southwest border -- nearly 2,000 miles -- by early fiscal year 2009,” Lieberman said.

“Well, it is now April of 2010, almost four years after SBInet began, after $770 million has been spent directly on SBInet and we are still waiting on the testing of a 23-mile stretch in the Tucson sector. By any measure, SBInet, has been a failure,” he noted.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) reiterated this point when he called the infrastructure technologies deployed in his home state, “an abysmal failure.”

Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) was as equally annoyed as his Republican counterparts, “why did we spend over $700 million dollars on a system that isn’t working?”

“Taxpayers do not have unlimited pockets,” the Illinois senator added.

Alan Bersin, the new commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) defended the program, which he stated was still undergoing “further testing and analysis.”

“The SBInet was a system to give us, through a combination of video and through radar, an ability to both detect incursions on a screen and identify the type of incursions, kind of person, kind of car, number of people,” Bersin told the committee.

“What has not worked,” Bersin added, “is the total integration of technology from each of the areas along the border into an overall system that would permit a central monitoring and control. That technological integration, at the very broadest, has been the complete failure the committee has described.”

Bersin went on to tell the committee members, “Technology, however, is a powerful force multiplier because it has the capability to provide situational awareness that is critical to effective control -- technology can continuously 'watch' the border.

“Technology also supports response capability by providing our agents with accurate information to identify and classify illicit incursions and therefore determine the best options for response. Improved communications capability also ensures our response forces are properly directed and coordinated.”