The Katrina of All Fences, is one way to describe this cluster&$#@! $85.5 million dollars wasted.
Just last week, Chertoff said “I have personally witnessed the value of this system, and I have spoken directly to the border patrol agents…who have seen it produce actual results, in terms of identifying and allowing the apprehension of people who were illegally smuggling across the border,”
Today, we learn the truth.:
The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a “virtual fence” along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from a network of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear, federal officials said yesterday.
Technical problems discovered in a 28-mile pilot project south of Tucson prompted the change in plans, Department of Homeland Security officials and congressional auditors told a House subcommittee.
Though the department took over that initial stretch Friday from Boeing, authorities confirmed that Project 28, the initial deployment of the Secure Border Initiative network, did not work as planned or meet the needs of the U.S. Border Patrol.
The announcement marked a major setback for what President Bush in May 2006 called “the most technologically advanced border security initiative in American history.” The virtual fence was to be a key component of his proposed overhaul of U.S. immigration policies, which died last year in the Senate.
Investigators for the Government Accountability Office had earlier warned that the effort was beset by both expected and unplanned difficulties. But yesterday, they disclosed new troubles that will require a redesign and said the first phase will not be completed until near the end of the next president’s first term.
Those problems included Boeing’s use of inappropriate commercial software, designed for use by police dispatchers, to integrate data related to illicit border-crossings. Boeing has already been paid $20.6 million for the pilot project, and in December, the DHS gave the firm another $65 million to replace the software with military-style, battle management software.
In other words, we’ve all just been taken for a ride, and for something we didn’t even accept as adequate in the first place. In order to do whatever possible to avoid building an actual physical fence and to get the amnesty bill passed, Bush, McCain and their amnesty cronies made sure a monumental amount of money was wasted on a fake, untested, unreal fence to placate conservatives who simply want to keep this nation safe from predators.
I am not so sure about all of that, what I am sure of is that Boeing is not having a good week.
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If a virtual fence is so damn much better than a real one, why do they have that big ugly wrought iron thing blocking the view of the White House from Pennsylvania Blvd? It was a joke from the beginning. Cameras don’t stop bank robbers, why should anyone expect them to stop smugglers?
Build a REAL fence, or lay a minefield. The minefield would be a lot less expensive, more environmentally sound, and would DEFINITELY discourage illegal border crossings. Throw in a few sensors and the border patrol would know when to go clean up a body. The psychological effect alone would be so much more effective than a fence and it would save lives. You can guarantee that once a couple of dozen illegal aliens went boom, most of the rest would stop trying to sneak across. The net result would be that fewer would die from the land mines than die from dehydration in the desert every year.
Yet another failure for the Bush Admin.
Robert, it would be a failure if they had actually intended to build the thing. They have succeeded in doing exactly what they intended, waste millions of taxpayer dollars looking like they were doing something about the illegal alien problem while doing exactly nothing about it. The news does get worse.
Last month a military cooperation agreement between the US and Canada was made that will allow the deployment of Canadian Army units on US soil in the case of emergencies to include civil unrest. This would permit the White House to declare an emergency and deploy Canadian Army units without going to Congress for legislation suspending Posse Comitatus, something they are forbidden to do with US Army units. Imagine Hillary having the ability to declare an emergency somewhere and send in a battalion of armed Canadian troops to suppress any form of civil unrest. Think Waco or Ruby Ridge without having to worry about repercussions. Simply send the soldiers home before the smoke clears and nothing could be done about it.