The minimum cost of setting up the system is estimated at $1 million a mile but that figure does not include the ongoing costs of maintaining the infrastructure and staffing it.
Boeing, as the prime contractor, has selected nearly 100 of the 900 subcontractors that applied to work on the contract. A partial list, compiled from Boeing, DHS, military and local sources, includes Booz Allen Hamilton, Centech, DRS Technologies, Kollsman, Inc., LGS, L-3 Communications Government Services Incorporated, Perot Systems, Pinkerton Government Services, Power Contracting, Inc. Reconnaissance Group, Sandia National Laboratories, the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University in College Station and Unisys.
... Boeing protects its subcontracting plan as an industrial secret. It also operates under a guidance order from DHS not to talk on the record about SBInet, and refers all inquiries back to the federal agency. That agency, for its part, does not provide specific details about the work being performed under the contract, purportedly to keep the information from falling into the wrong hands.
A key component of the fence is a string of tower-mounted cameras that can sweep a 10-mile wide radius. This virtual fence is designed to monitor the border more effectively than human patrols..
[...each almost 100 feet tall, that scan a 360-degree radius...Ground radar sensors will also attempt to detect footsteps, bicycles and vehicles.]
The plan is that when migrants cross the SBInet's virtual fence, a LORROS camera, manufactured by Kollsman, Inc. of Merrimack, New Hampshire, will instantly detect their entry. These cameras will sit on top of specially designed towers (erected by DRS Technologies of Parsippany, New Jersey)...are each surrounded by a six-foot high chain link fence. These towers are equipped with Man-Portable Surveillance and Target Acquisition Radar (MStar) devices, that relay real-time electronic images to a private sector communications center.
When suspected migrants are spotted, a private enforcement contractor can take manual command of the camera, zoom in and identify the number of individuals as well as their means of transport. After classifying the "threat," the contractor electronically transfers the entrants' coordinates to Border Patrol agents via laptop computers mounted inside their vehicles.
Since Boeing won the contract last year, the estimated cost of securing the southwest border has gone from $2.5 billion to an estimated $8 billion just a few months later.
much more: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14552
Posted by Stubbornson at July 26, 2007 12:26 AM