SBInet and Failed Border Technologies
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a detailed report last week that criticizes attempts to patrol the Arizona-Mexico border using high-cost technologies.
The report comes ten months after the cancellation of SBInet, Boeing’s “virtual” fence project that started in November 2005 and eventually cost the United States over one billion dollars. While the project in theory required less manpower and provided 24/7 patrols of the border using surveillance towers and software platforms, in practice the results were dismal. Criticism of SBInet ranged from outright technological failures, to poor oversight, to few measurable success metrics.
Although the Department of Homeland Security ended SBInet’s expansion, the GAO report makes clear that the broader emphasis on such technologies has hardly waned.
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