Fate of 'invisible' border fence in limbo

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Work on a high-tech "invisible" fence along the U.S.-Mexico border involving high-tech cameras, radar and vibration sensors won't continue, U.S. officials said.

The Department of Homeland Security, after an investment of almost $1 billion, has decided not to exercise a one-year option for Boeing to continue work on the troubled project, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday.

The program, intended to provide advanced monitoring technologies for Border Patrol command centers to combat human trafficking and drug smuggling, has been plagued by missed deadlines and technical problems.

The problems have highlighted the limitations of existing technology in rugged, inhospitable terrain where high winds and a tumbleweed can be enough to trigger an alarm.

"It turned out to be a harder technological problem than we ever anticipated," Mark Borkowski, executive director of the electronic fence program at the Homeland Security Department, said earlier this year. "We thought it would be very easy, and it wasn't."

Most observers do not expect the government to invest billions more in a project that has continually been disappointing.

"The program is headed in the wrong direction," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler said Customs and Border Protection would determine "if there are alternatives that may more efficiently, effectively and economically meet our nation's border security needs."