Obama keeps Bush plan for 'virtual fence'

WASHINGTON, May 9 (UPI) -- The Obama administration's plan to create a "virtual fence" on the U.S.-Mexican border relies on unproven technology, a security analyst said.

Much as the Bush administration did three years ago, the Obama administration Friday outlined plans for a multibillion-dollar system of tower-mounted sensors and other surveillance equipment along most of the 2,000-mile border, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

The system is intended to speed deployment of U.S. Border Patrol officers to intercept illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and other violators, said James Jay Carafano, a security analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

"What the Obama administration is trying to do is sending this political message, 'We're doing enforcement,' " Carafano said. However, he said, betting on unproven technology increases the risk the Department of Homeland Security will end up "overpromising and under-delivering."

Between 1998 and 2005, the federal government spent $429 million on two border systems so unreliable that only 1 percent of alarms led to arrests, the Post reported.