News Reports, User Experience Stories

Jan 11

On Sixty Minutes Jan 10: Homeland Security has had a billion dollar project with Boeing to create a “virtual fence,” using technology to monitor the border with Mexico. The 60 Minutes report demonstrates that the project has been a fiasco, because, among other things:

  • They never asked the Border Patrol what they wanted and needed.
  • The system depended on border agents using laptops in their off-road vehicles as they patrolled vast dusty areas with no telecom signal.
  • The system relied on motion detection  — and reacted to things like raindrops and rolling sagebrush.
  • It also relied on off-the-shelf technology that had never been tested in the heat, dust, and wind of the border area.
  • The project was deployed without prior testing. NOW they’re calling it a prototype, but that wasn’t the original description.