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US Scraps Virtual Fence Along Mexican Border
Pickens writes "The Arizona Republic reports that the federal government has officially cancelled its multibillion-dollar plan to build a virtual fence along the border with Mexico as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano disclosed in a congressional briefing that the program known as SBInet was costing too much and achieving too little. 'SBInet cannot meet its original objective of providing a single, integrated border-security technology solution,' says Napolitano. Boeing was hired in 2006 to develop the system under a three-year federal contract with cost projections for full build-out as high as $8 billion but efforts were plagued by delays, glitches, budget increases and congressional criticism. Napolitano has ordered Customs and Border Protection to launch a more modest and geographically tailored effort using SBInet funds and existing technology such as mobile-surveillance systems, unmanned aircraft, thermal-imaging devices and remote-video surveillance with proven elements of SBInet including stationary radar and infrared-sensor towers. SBInet cost nearly $1 billion for development along 53 miles of Arizona border."
actually, that's a lie made by certain BATF agents and aped by Obama, and some congressmen. The accurate statement is 90% of traceable guns that were submitted to the AFT were U.S. origin, and they were submitted because they were likely to be of U.S. origin. Most drug cartel guns in Mexico come from overseas black markets.
Also Fox News made a false statement, that 17% of the cartel guns were U.S. and the rest foreign. Figure might be twice that or more.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/counting-mexicos-guns/