Fergie's Tech Blog

SBInet Off to Inauspicious Start

Ben Bain writes on Washington Technology:

Guards along the U.S. border with Mexico have not yet begun using the first phase of a multiyear, multibillion-dollar program for securing the border four months after lawmakers expected it to be operational.

The delays in the Secure Border Initiative Network (SBInet) stem from difficulties that Boeing, the lead contractor, has had integrating software. The first phase, called Project 28, is meant to fortify a 28-mile section of the border near Sasabe, Ariz., and demonstrate SBInet’s ability to secure larger stretches of the border.

Angered by the delays, lawmakers lashed out at officials from Boeing and Gregory Giddens, executive director of the Homeland Security Department’s SBI Program Management Office, at a joint hearing Oct. 24 of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism Subcommittee and the Management, Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee.

posted by Fergie @ 10/26/2007 06:51:00 PM