Social Issues - Government and Bureaucracy - Boeing Gets Homeland Security Boondoggle!

It was announced today that Boeing - the airplane builders in Seattle - was awarded a $2 billion contract to “secure” a 700 miles strip of the US border with Mexico. In one way it’s high tech, but in another, it is merely adaption of existing technology to an old problem.

So what are the longsuffering taxpayers to get for $2,000,000,000.00? Twenty 50 feet tall towers , per mile. 14,000 towers. Each tower will have a motion detector, a night vision source and a movable tv camera featuring both zoom and close up picture taking ability. Fiberoptic cable will connect each tower to 10 control centers where several dozen plasma tv screens will serve as monitors. Each center will monitor 1,400 towers.

Motion detectors will alert operators which towers have an “item of interest” in range. The operator can investigate via the electronic medium. The operator’s selections will transmitted via cell-phones to the nearest Border Patrol agents. These same towers will also receive back from the person on the ground via his or her cell phones, pictures and other information. Instant visual and audio contact will be routine. Of course, all this will be duly recorded on digital records, and is capable of being passed along to other agencies in real time. The president can sit in his War Room 100 feet below the White House and want chaise live on the 10 foot plasma screens.

It was not stated if this contract included 5,000 cell phones needed to keep everyone on-board. At a quarter million dollars for each tower, ridiculous, but that comes to $350 million, and $5 million for each of the 10 control facilities, that comes to $50 million and add another $50 million for computers and miscellaneous equipment to make it all go, that comes to $450 million. So where’s the other money going? Just how deep are taxpayers pockets? And who gets access? (All numbers are my own.)

What do you think about this "contract?"



[edit on 9/20/2006 by donwhite]