The Death of the US-Mexico Virtual Fence

eldavojohn writes "A couple of years ago it was announced that the Boeing-built virtual fence at the US-Mexico border didn't work. Started in 2006, SBInet has been labeled a miserable failure and finally halted. A soon-to-be-released GAO report is expected to be overwhelmingly critical of SBInet, causing DHS Chief Janet Napolitano to announce yesterday that funding for the project has been frozen. It's sad that $1.4 billion had to be spent on the project before the discovery that this poorly conceived idea would not work."

Comments

Re:This project was not about building a fence

[Camel Pilot]

Right on...

Another failed Bush program that lined the pockets of the politically connected.

Re:This project was not about building a fence

[AK Marc]

Another would be to actually accept bids. Every try to bid on a federal contract? Unless you've gotten one in the past (meaning you've done all the work for getting one), you have to put in tens of thousands of dollars just to meet the paperwork requirements. And because of such things, they greatly favor previous winners. And so, cheaper and better contractors don't want anything to do with the system that takes and takes before they get a payoff (especially since the old contractors can and do fight to overturn the winners if there are new winners so you can win and then not actually do anything).