WASHINGTON — Boeing wants to guard the nation's borders — for a couple of billion dollars. Boeing's St. Louis-based defense division has developed a plan — combining radar and laser technology, sensors and cameras, unmanned aerial vehicles, other surveillance equipment and rapid communications tools — to keep illegal immigrants, drug smugglers, potential terrorists and gun runners from entering the United States.It's done so at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security, which, seeking better ways to protect U.S. borders, a few months ago asked corporations with expertise in systems integration to supply ideas and technological know-how.
| So it's a virtual, not physical, fence that they want to build. |
The competition for the contract ends next month, when federal officials will choose Boeing or one of four rivals: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Ericsson of Sweden. The firms have devised a variety of ways to combine technology — existing or to be developed — with the government's border patrol and infrastructure.
Because the government wants to benefit from the firms' high-tech experience and capability to innovate, it's given them a lot of leeway, noted Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based think tank on defense and homeland security issues. "This is a form of creeping privatization or at least of outsourcing," Thompson said. "With the traditional approaches of border patrols clearly not up to the challenge of securing the borders, the government seems more inclined to assign key responsibilities to industry. It is going outside of its traditional offices to pursue high-tech, imaginative alternatives."
The program is known as the Strategic Border Initiative network, or SBInet.
| Fred, there has just got to be something in this for WoT-focused weblogs. |
| No, really? |
"Without building a hard fence, we're going to make the border a virtual system," he said. "We'll be able to detect who's crossing the border why and when and at what point, and hopefully identify whether they're terrorists or drug smugglers, weapons smugglers or people hoping to join the work force."
The government is saying little, other than that it will award the winner-take-all contract by the end of the current fiscal year Sept. 30.