good morning the subcommittee will come to order the subcommittees meeting today to receive testimony on the secure border initiative f b i net three years later i would like to at this point today's today's hearing will further examine the department of homeland security secure border initiative physical infrastructure santini as well as the virtual fence known as f b i net thank you to our witnesses for being here today many of you have been before before and in particular mr stan i thank you for your continued frank and honest assessment of what is happening out there on this initiative the witnesses testimony and responses to  questions are critical parts of the oversight this subcommittee continues to conduct on the secure border initiative and f b i net in fact many of the members of this committee have had an opportunity once or twice now to go over and take a look not only at the physical fence in different portions but also at the virtual fence and what is going on with f b i nap given that the boeing f b i net contract to spot expiring soon i think that this is a good opportunity for us to catch our breath and see what's going on and see whether we have any movement on this program or if there is a lack of progress in the program and i'm particular concerned by f b i net programs ongoing struggle with transparency and what i see is a pattern of delayed planned developments for instance in may of two thousand and eight i had the opportunity along with many members of the subcommittee to travel to the tucson center sector interview i net project twenty eight and to hear about the beginning stages of the one and tucson one i think the chief accompanied us on that i was assured that these new projects would be fully operational and able to be accepted by the department of homeland security by the end of two thousand and eight and i'm extremely be disappointed that the new deadline estimate that tucson one will be december two thousand and nine and that one will be ready in june twenty based on my past experience with the missing of deadlines on this project i have a real hesitancy to believe that these deadlines are even going to be meet  these new ones in the last series of hearings on this topic the subcommittee was given hard dates and assurances that deadlines for some specific get behind that projects would be met by boeing and yet the weeks weeks later they were pu pushback f b i s full deployment along the southwest border now estimated by boeing and c b p to occur in twenty sixteen will be seven years after the original contract and date of two thousand and ni this situation is incredibly troubling since in the meantime our border patrol agents continue to use older and less capable technology we have maintenance issues and more importantly there's more danger to our border patrol  as time moves on further as a member of the congress who's very concerned about fiscal responsibility it's hard for me to believe that the h s would award a contract of one point one billion dollars over three years and continue to award without viable results moving to the other half of the secure border initiative the physical border fence it has also risen in cost what used to cost us three point five million dollars a mile is now it's six point five million dollars a mile and vehicle fencing gone from one million dollars to one point eight million dollars per mile and that sort of unbelievable considering that construction costs because we haven't been building construction been in the dumps how we could really justify that the cost of fencing the vehicle and the pedestrian fence is going up so much according to program date there has been about thirty three hundred breaches in the  and it cost us about thirteen hundred dollars every time that we have to repair them and that being said we have yet to see whether or not this has increased border security and has and i'm still waiting to really see that and i know that about a year or two ago chief you and i had a discussion about what's really going to take to do this and we're trying to figure out what the metrics would be so i'm interested to see what you think the metrics are and how you can justify whether these these systems are working for us so i look forward to your testimony into the responses to many questions and i have and i know that you can see from the interest here that we all have so many questions on the let my ranking member mr souter from indiana for his opening statement who's very concerned about this issue thank you madam chair securing our borders closing vulnerabilities and gaining operational control this is what was promised to congress and the american people when  i was announced four years ago four years and nine and a half months ago it is hard to be optimistic when we sit here today and have partial technology deployed along just twenty three miles of the southwest border in a few northern border set to begin in the next month or two over one billion dollars has been allocated but it seems that very little progress has been made it's been very slow i think it is important to note for the past three years we've been asking for a timeline for a deployment and life cycle costs but they have yet to be provided similarly there is no picture of the performance metrics and parameters used to judge the success of this program it's hard to have congress accurately review and conduct oversight over this initiative without these key pieces of data do not take this criticism as a lack of my support for the project and the larger goal of securing our borders i think it needs to be a top priority just in their ministration now is not the time to waver in this commitment to that end i need to raise a concern i have with the number of miles considered to be under operational or effective control according the c b p documentation as of october two thousand and eight there are six hundred twenty five miles of the southwest border considered to be under effective control according to the fiscal year two thousand and ten budget justification by the end of two thousand and nine there should be eighty eight hundred and fifteen miles under effective control if these estimates are correct we will have gained one hundred ninety miles in a little over a year this is good news i think can be attributed to the additional staffing in the construction of six hundred thirty miles of tactical infrastructure fencing and vehicle barriers the budget justification goes on to say that zero additional miles outside of the eight fifteen are expected to be under affective control in two thousand and ten how is it possible that the border patrol could come to this conclusion what is expected to happen with f b i net in the next year or more personnel or fencing or the national guard necessary c b p needs to address these concerns at today's hearing on monday u s law enforcement conducted and i terror operation new york city according to intelligence officials all indications pointed to the need to intervene and prevent further plotting and coordination while few details are known at this time as investigation is ongoing i think is a poignant reminder that eight years after september eleventh terrorist attacks we are still a country at risk we must remain vigilant and aggressive in securing our country from attacks securing our borders closing vulnerabilities and gaining operational control are essential for bolstering the security of our nation and the f b i net programs should be a cornerstone building block of this effort like to point out on a personal note that i was down on the southwest border and this for about a short of a  that these physical fencing as we went to a probably about six different stops along the border we have breaches in the old fencing we do not have breaches in the new fencing and that has also that the soil in different areas have changed cost estimates and difficulty that they are continuing to adjust even in the areas where we've had the breaches for example one of the debates is can you put barbed wire on the one kind of fencing in california that they're cutting through where most where it's very expensive which is what has been in the news media can be addressed by trying to block them from getting to the fence which is what they're now experimented with the physical fence does not secure the border the physical fence stops vehicles it stops larger groups it slows people down so that as we move the technology behind it we can move people in behind if it's in a mountainous area they they can catch him as they move to the road if it's in a flat area at this rate of speed that they're coming across t slowed significantly down and it's the combination then with a nuff agents and we've been plussing up the border patrol with which to go get the different groups then do to get them to different places and we have to see how we're going to increase this because quite frankly i doubt if an immigration bill is going to be able to move through this congress until we have far more the number of miles they're currently projected secured under effective control because any kind of major immigration reform will lead to additional pressures on the border unless we have a higher percent under effective control your back i thank the ranking member and the chair now recognize the chairman of the full committee the gentleman from m mississippi mr thompson for an opening statement thank you madam chairman and i welcome our witnesses to this hearing today today's hearing on the secure border initiative comes at a very important time as next week marks an anniversary of sorts for the department of homeland security on september twenty fourth two thousand and six the h s awarded the contract to bolling to help secure our nation's borders at that time we were told that bowling would be integrating existing off the shelf technology to create a virtual fence along the borders known as f b i net it was supposed to be a relatively easy project  instead the government accountability office has repeatedly raised concerns about f b i net including poor planning is insufficient testing inadequate government oversight and a failure to set and achieve project goals today after spending nearly a billion dollars on the program we are still waiting for an effective technological too to secure america's borders d h s and boeing have had three years to show they can secure the borders with technology it is my understanding that they have at least one more year to do so if the department renews boeing's f b i net contract for an additional year as expected which on the stand has already been executed it is time to deliver some tangible results to the american people and to congress i'd like to know how the h s is going to ensure that when bowen delivers the next phase i net to the government early next year taxpayers get their money's worth clearly this administration has inherited a serious challenge and has some difficult choices ahead of the h s t the needs to get f b i net right find an alternative technology solutions that will do the job along with technology d h s s committed signet good resources in recent years to constructing physical fencing along the southwest border while there are currently over six hundred miles of fence and barriers according to g a o the department has not systematically evaluated the effectiveness of these various at a price tag of roughly two point four billion dollars and a potential lifecycle cost of six point five billion dollars jail's finding is extremely troubling looking ahead both d h s and boeing have considerable ground to cover when it comes to deploying a protective efficient border security technology and infrastructure i'm hopeful this administration can address many of the problems that have pray this program and prevent border security technology efforts the witnesses can be issue it that this committee will continue to monitor the secure border initiative closely i'd like to thank chairwoman sanchez for all her work continuing her oversight on this i portant topic i'd also like to thank the witnesses for being here today and i also look forward to that testimony i thank the chairman of the full committee other members of the subcommittee reminded that the committee rules what the committee rules are that opening statements may be submitted for the record and so now i would like to welcome our panel of witnesses give the backgrounds of our witnesses and then we'll start down the row and ask for your five minutes or less summarize sation a summary of your written testimony our first witness will be chief david aguilar he was named the chief of the united states border patrol and may of two thousand and four quickly and you've been at the helm of that so you have the expertise gained from thirty years of service we look forward to your testimony chief and welcome our second witness mr mark work house key was named executive director of the border initiative program executive office in october of two thousand and eight he oversees the f b i implementation at customs and border protection and he will oversee f b i continued efforts to provide front line personnel with the enhanced situational awareness along the u s borders before joining c b p he was the program executive for the robotic lunar exploration program in the exploration systems mission directorate at nasa headquarters welcome our third witness mr timothy peters is a vice president of global security systems a business of boeing integrated defense systems he is responsible for the execution of f b i net and other g s s programs since joining boeing in one thousand nine hundred five mr peters is held a number of key engineering and leadership positions on surveillance and command and control programs we welcome you this morning and our final witness mr richard stana is the director of homeland security and justice issues at the government accountability office during his thirty three year career with the g a o mr stana has directed reviews on a wide variety of complex military domestic issues and most recently he has directed geos work in immigration and border security issues he's been frequently before us we welcome you back so without objection the witness is full statements well being safety of our men and women it is good to be here this morning and it is absolutely a privilege and an honor to appear before you to testify on discuss the secure border initiative as you stated i am accompanied by mr moore who is our executive border patrol has the ability to consistently detect identify respond to any illegal incursion that occurs between the ports of entry and very importantly has the ability to bring that in persian to an appropriate law enforcement resolution in our view control of our borders between the ports of entry appropriate combination of personnel technology and tactical infrastructure which includes border fencing we often referred to this requirement as a three legged stool these components are interdependent and provide for maximum effectiveness really applied the mix of these three elements will vary depending on the challenges posed by the area which we're focusing within that construct the secure border initiative plays an important role it is but one part of our integrated approach but it is a very critical and significant piece the current focus of the secure border initiative is to support border control efforts by providing  technology for discussing the details of f b i and that it might be useful to provide a short update on our progress with respect to construction of tactical infrastructure along the southwest border as of the end of august we have approx six hundred thirty two southwest border the exact mileage is imprecise at this point because it will depend on the actual measurement of completed fence as opposed to pre construction estimates we are actually in the process of modifying th protection in early two thousand and i'll also say a few words about our deployments on the northern border twenty eight which has been operational for eighteen months now has proven proven to be a valuable and forstmann tool for the border patrol also serves as a valuable engineering the tough one deployment consists of nine center towers communication towers and a command control facility the black one system includes a fixed tower design and upgraded sensor package an improved communication system and a new common operational  picture cop boeing engineers work side by side with border patrol agents in the design of the look feel and function of the block one common operational picture during the development we have encountered technological challenges common to the integration of commercial off the shelf components to recent issues have proven to be especially problematic the first control of the radar during the second human machine interface after a detailed root cause correct corrective action effort i'm pleased to report that we've  then the boy deployed one system or undergo system acceptance testing during the fourth quarter of this year when completed we will deliver the system to the government for operational testing evaluation which will be overseen by the border patrol results of these tests will assist the customer in determining future deployment and system and handsome and deployment is also progressing the system design is complete and construction of the border patrol command and control facility has been initiated however site specific work and deployment has also been working on the northern border deployments in the buffalo sectors in these deployments boeing is installing remote video surveillance systems to enhance valence capabilities in the temperate river environment the r v s esas are comprised of  both deployments are planned to be delivered to the government by early two thousand and ten in conclusion i'd like to say that it has been both an important and challenging program to the boeing boeing company the p twenty eight prototype and black one system represent approximately half of the government funded effort boeing has additionally boeing has made a number of significant capital in research and development investments to ensure the success of the program the block one system remains the core of our effort as i mentioned earlier i believe we have a system that is robust and soon will be ready for widespread deployment our goal remains to provide the technology and tools to support enhanced border security and increased agency at the best value of the taxpayer sector deployment underway  copy of the northern border action strategy and we'd appreciate an answer also on july thirty first two thousand and nine months a half ago three ranking members of government reform and oversight natural resources and this committee plus with the partners but about the concept that the fact that when you have hilly areas of the border particularly in that area from nogales over to work flattens out by organ pipe and the host sector in my district when i'm going back and forth between warsaw and fort wayne any little bump yet alone the hills like in california will cause me to lose my cell phone service it wasn't too hard to figure out that when you have relay towers particularly when this subject visited as a group and we saw the tall towers to try to address that that the wind was going to blow that we already knew that from the military this would have been transferable information and i don't believe there was adequate it vance planning before plunging into this contract about the realism of it now what in tucson one they've addressed with some smaller tower some taller towers they're trying to kind of overcome some of the conceptual flaws of how you do this transmission of technology in a mountainous area how that's different and in the flat areas it will be easier but it will have there are continual flat areas anywhere along that border that vagal are did some of this over by douglas and the early primitive forms that kind of identified how do you tell in fact the first time i was coming up on prince sultan air force base that they spent tons of that one of my questions has been repeatedly how do we get military technology which we've already paid for in the government transferred in the border technology that i have  aerospace raytheon general dynamics u s s i b e all in my district all who do electronics warfare and so on i've been talking to them this system is incredibly cheap compared to anything we do in the military and we're trying to do what they're doing and tracking terrorists and what they're doing in military on the cheap and it has been a struggle that as we get into some of the particulars let me ask mr peters a question in your contract because early on private government funded and and boeing has also made some contributions that capital even if it didn't i don't know the number of times i had no get that and that were was your contract on project twenty eight a fixed cost and then you  x and that in tucson one how is that working on one's a different contract and so we're you know we're working to we're going to deploy that we're currently partway through our s q to your system qualification test and we'll move into our system acceptance tests later this fall the government challenge now is that when we invest in something that we basically had to out optimistic and ambitious goals and now have this kind of investment if we switch the partnership group that we have we lose the testing center and we lose a lot of what you've invested in your private funds or do we have to pay you for that you'll certainly lose the non recurring engineering that has gone gone spent over the past two years on on tucson one and then we have to look at specifically what portions of the playa site were were you know boeing funded and which were government funded and we need to understand as we run this in military contracting that this type of contract that we have here where they had to do the cost overruns puts us in a different situation as we develop future alternatives mr koski in the one of the  overly ambitious to use mr stannis words was that this was going to be able to be communicated to the vehicles does that appear realistic and isn't that in the future proposals because that would be a great advance but i know what the systems cost when we transfer on the humvees and it is nothing like the classed of what you're proposing to do correct sir the block one does not include the mobile data terminals and for several reasons why it is the cost of creating the capability the other is the operational experience and the concepts that we gain it's a question of do we really get benefit from that so as be on the block one does not include mobile data terminals to deal with those kinds of questions in tucson will either tucson one wreck tucson one is the first deployment of the so correct now we're still looking at options if they're required downstream but they're not in the baseline at this point because to some degree in the mountainous areas it's easier to get in behind and send the people there than to try to figure out how to transmit this data into a vehicle when the train's going up and you're back i thank the ranking member i'll now recognize the chairman of the full committee of homeland security in the house mr thompson for five minutes thank you very much continuing somewhat along the line of your questioning and the ranking members earlier this year the border patrol agents had an opportunity to operate the newest  technology at the boeing test facility we've already heard that according to g a o the agency indicated that on windy days the radar had an excessive number of false detections which is one of the problems that plagued project twenty eight but agents also compared the new camera technology to the existing project twenty eight and mobile unit cameras and said that the new cameras did not even measure up to the existing one now is this true it is true that that was the conclusion of the agency those are true statements so they just don't know what they were talking about no that is what the agents experience but one of the reasons for doing the operational cessna which was informal was to test some other things like how well did we explain the operation of the system how well did we train the operators to use the system they are familiar with resample project twenty eight and a lot of these operators are familiar with the mobile surveillance system so one of the reasons for doing that operational segment was to collect that information figure out what the what the problem was what was the cause of that and then if in the actual deployment that really is an issue so that was the purpose of that was to collect that information now in many cases we don't think that that problem persist net block one is as deploying to someone but again that's what the formal operational test about so if your testimony to the committee is that it happened but there was some reasons for  happening and it's been corrected we believe self and again we will see for sure in the operational test of age but we believe so mrs stanhope would you want to comment well first that's why you have testing to get the bugs out that right away but that's why we have testing and that's why the operational testing by the border patrol in january is going to be very telling and i have a diagram i will put on on the screen and f b i net and what i really want to do is to have you to explain to the committee what specific steps boeing is taking toward making this technology depicted in this diagram a reality are you asking that question well i guess both mr peters and yourself ok the the project twenty eight which was a prototype although to be fair not properly advertised as such attempted to  test this concept of operations and to learn from it so it did have things like satellite communications it did have things like the mobile data terminals it did have the kinds of things that are depicted here based on that experience as beyond that block one is a different concept it's a concept that uses microwave communications and relay towers to send the information from the sensors back to the station and then at the station for agents to dispatch others to respond so this concept is not the concept of espionage one based on the lessons learned from project twenty eight and the current estimate of the operational needs of the border patrol so so it was changed does  that reflect a change in pricing or change in technology the project twenty eight which as we discussed was a firm fixed price did overrun but boeing had to absorb those costs as we've designed the new system that new system is put on by a new task orders which are like new contracts i mean they're all on this basic contract and they are priced based on what we know or anticipate we want to do next so the go forward is priced and by the way that's a cost reimburs e contract that means the government will pay what it costs so those are estimated based on the current concept the standard based on what you just heard is that generally accepted procedure i think it's a generally accepted approach to begin with a project and build on what you can actually make work that is fine what's missing here and i don't know if it's fair to ask the congress to consider a six point seven billion dollar investment if we really don't know what the end game is going to look like and i know there's some development that goes on here but what this seems  articulate to me is this is someone's vision of the endgame where you have maybe satellite sensors mobile units and so on and i don't know how much of that is still on the table in the out years so it's just a lot of uncertaint president calderon has said he's in a war with the drug cartels and i mention this only to frame the issue that's really why we're here today that is a right that is why getting operational control the borders so important they show me the fence that had been the physical fence that had been built in el paso which is allowed border patrol to gain more operational control but while the physical fence is nearly completed progress along the lines of the virtual fence using technology in my view has barely begun and i wanted to reference to one classified notation a d h s s intelligence report saying that drug trafficking organizations operating  chihuahua mexico use some three hundred identified makeshift crossings at low points along the rio grande between el paso and presidio this is according to a mexican government study cited in a war as daily newspaper and unclassified map from the d h us intelligence report shows she was in the main drug trafficking locations despite the evidence that this mexican state is a source of significant drug trafficking and violence it's alarming to me that the f b i now project does not anticipate deploying surveillance technology to this section of the texas mexico border including the marfa del rio or patrol sectors until after the year two thousand and fourteen at the earliest two thousand and fourteen we have completed the physical fence virtually to the point why in the world is this take so lon g to do what we what we've tried to do is come up with what we think is a reasonable and prudent and acceptable budget an ambitious but acceptable budget so essentially the plan that you're describing is a plan that we put forward as a how much could we do with the most budget that we could reasonably expect to ask for by the way the budget will get but that was the plan we laid out the idea i think is to get through this f b i net block one to a point where we can then start stamping these out essentially as production and then the pace of that depends on funding one and then to any desire to build off of one is there anything i want to change in it as i go into other areas but that's fundamentally where that  from it was the most that we thought we could reasonably ask for in funding which is not to say what will get ok so that that all has to be focused in on this too well you know again this is you know we're spending a great deal of money up here in washington and yet we still can't get this border situation under control and it seems to me we ought to be investing more in this technology to get this thing done more rapidly than the year two thousand and fourteen and you know my constituents the american people want this done and they don't want to wait five years to see this thing completed my a governor the texas governor rick perry in the meantime because of the crisis down there has requested a thousand national guard troops to be deployed and has as been working on this for a while to recognize one of our members who actually represents border area with some of the most crossings i believe that would be heck are we paying millions of dollars when we can do this in the tens of thousands for the same range that we have certainly if we can do what we need to do for tens of thousands we'd like to see that and look at and we'd be happy to look at that we are actually and have talked to parts of the d o d it turns out the applications they're talking about compared to our needs don't always match quite the way they might think however i do spend three to six hours on an average week talking with department of defense people on their proposals talking with various vendors and contractors because we actually are trying to collect a reservoir of technology so that we can start as we gain experience with the f b i net and we're able to measure its effectiveness and we gain applications that they have i think correct in saying that they don't exactly match up but we will have the brief and informational meeting so that we can take a look at  it and then we can decide since we set the policy the congress as to whether what the department of defense has done in other areas like iraq and looking at the borders for example whether that technology because it tends to be less expensive than what we're experiencing here whether that is applicable and whether that really blankets or allows us to feel the confidence level we need our border  disincentives other dissidents or penalties for contractor missed deadlines a program errors that caused delays in general i would say that the contract we have is awkward it is not the contract in hindsight that probably we should have it does have the capability to do incentives and disincentives ultimately the responsibility though for holding the cost is basically the government program management the contractor the contract is a standard contract it's a standard type of acquisition gives us the tools that we do need it includes elements like award fee and incentive which of which adjust profit based on the performance of the contractor and as we put additional tasks we are in the position where we put this incentive so for example on the northern border there are schedule incentives and if schedules are missed there are penalties for missing them there are also other kinds of tools that we have outside of the contract but i would say that the contract as a structured is awkward and as we get to the point where we have this kind of this production system that we can start stamping out we're going to look at how do we get out from under the structure of this contract thank you mr stana and your testimony you noted the concerns about the impact the place in towers and access roads environmentally sent sensitive locations have caused us beyond deployment delays has g a o quantified the impact these environmental concerns have had on technology deployments provisions of the secure fence act applied to the f b i program turns out it didn't so they had to go through some environmental procedures to place the towers and roads the other two or the fencing you know thank you said the contract was committed information who developed the contract ultimately were responsible for the contract i can't promise that i hope that we learn our lessons from these kinds of experiences i have the contract i have and i have to make the most of it until i'm in a position a reasonable time position to fix it but maybe i  business so let me ask you something because i'm told that it's a possibility you may be doing an add on or you may be extended in the very near future does that mean the extension or the add ons are going to be awkward also  the extension of the contract is done and the contract itself has what are called task orders words which are essentially sub contracts and that's what makes it awkward because the elements of each of these task orders are really connected but they look like they're independent contract and that's the awkward part now the way that we managing that now is we have imposed requirements on the contractor to connect those so we can work around it and certainly though in the future to the degree that i'm in control of design of a contract we would not do this in the future but it is what we have i believe mr sattar i'll recognize you had a comment also yes and i think it's important that mr peters also acknowledge that was a tad awkward on your side in that generally speaking boeing does not have the principle of entering into contracts that cost you more than two times what you get it is an awkward arrangement particularly a development contract or as mr burke koski said you have multiple task orders and they are linked together but contractually they're treated a separate that's what makes it awkward that when that's what makes it slow and any fission for the contractor and customer relationship in a fairly good safety will say that if this project ended now it would have been an experience you would have rather not been in the assumption here is  that if boeing can continue it maybe you can recoup back to even but the one thing that needs to be pointed out here is there was not an enrichment of the private sector in this contract this was just basically way over promised and everybody has lost their shirt so to speak on it so far well but i think the record needs to reflect that this was a competitive process it was not a soul so mind waiting thank you panel for being here the security of our nation depends on maintaining operational control of our borders there's no question about it and if the s p i net is able to meet bishan it will be a valuable tool in achieving this control however time after time officials from v h s and boeing have come in and told congress that the program is back on track that past problems have been resolved and everyone is ready to move forward and time after time we later find out the old problems have not been fixed and there continue to be delays today we're hearing again the same story after months of being told f net is back on track and ready for deployment the g a o is reporting that the technology has many of the same flaws it has had for years this program is too important to keep messing up and needs to get back on track stana how much closer are we now than we were two years ago to having an operational system that works the way we've been vision and without the operational shortfalls that have been evident in the past that's a good question and i don't have a complete answer for you what i do know is that the testing regimes that have been designed for block one are more rigorous than they were for project and there were some lessons learned from project twenty eight that have been incorporated in the design of the block one on the other hand we're seeing the same kinds of issues that we've seen and camera projects dating back into the one nine hundred ninety s camera range reliability and water and these kinds of things so i guess we'll find out when it goes to operational testing i share your concern about the optimism mr peters is the third boeing vice president that i recall and each time it's been an optimistic assessment and i can understand coming from the contractor why that would be but i think we have to wait and see exactly what's delivered and it is is that operationally efficient and effective for the user of the border patrol the second part of my question is why why are we not testing until january of next year why don't we start testing now the operational testing maybe peter you can answer that we actually are testing but there are phases of test there's the test that the contractor has to sell this off to me as the engineering geek and so we're going to do that and that's going to start here shortly in fact some of his already started in in tucson at that point i'm going to make a conclusion about whether boeing gave me what i thought they were supposed to give me when that happens my customers the chief of the border patrol now i'm going to turn it over to the ch border patrol and he's going to make whatever conclusion he chooses to make the testing we're talking about starting in january so there are steps to get to that can that be accelerated but but again the schedule that we've given you is a schedule that we think is reasonable again you know there are risks as mr stanton says and i don't want to over promise i want to tell you we think we've done the best we can at this point to give us the most confidence and that we'll try to accelerate if we can but we're still already working with boeing on that but we're not confident that will succeed i appreciate your desire not to over promise we do not need that now but we do need up a system that's operational thank you i yield back thank you mr patrick i will not recognize again and it seems like this is eerily similar to the outcome that we saw from that debacle but with a lot bigger numbers to ask mister  again i can't tell you why we think we've we've always but with a much bigger numbers right the only thing i can tell you sir is that i think i think that we've had to build our own competence in managing a program like this and learning what you have to put in place and some of the things that we put in place at the start of this program in hindsight were not effective and so now we're in a position where we can either stop and start over or we can fix as much is as we think we need to fix to make the risk going forward prudent and that's exactly what we're doing and there are risks in that approach so we're trying to fix what should have probably been fixed before this program but we're doing in the process of delivering it i can't i can't explain how we got here and i just don't understand just  standpoint why it's so difficult and they knew that basically cameras on a pole and we've got folks that monitor in multiple cameras on a day and in a dispatcher format and i've been out there and i've seen him and i just don't understand why we're having problems this is not the most sophisticated technology that our country has as you just heard the chairwoman you know what we're doing in iraq is much more sophisticated in some ways it is and in some ways it isn't and one of the key things here well first of all there are two things going on here and i'll use a little bit of an analogy because what we bet on and it was probably not a good bet but what we bet on was that this was like buying a new computer printer for your computer and you're supposed be able to plug it in when you go home and you know the printer supposed to work when i do that half the time the printer doesn't work it's supposed to but it doesn't and i have to go get the cd rom and cram it into place and i'll eventually get it to work that's that's one factor the other is i think we missed the point sometimes that this is a networked system that's very important this is a network system all of these towers are connected and what that means is that you get in the case of tucson one nine radars nine infrared cameras nine electoral cameras all coming together into one pipeline one communication pipeline so there's a process you have to go to manipulate the data from those things to get all the fitness but it and i understand that but my point is that is basic technology we do it here we have all sorts of information systems here that if we run your thing this one building just in this one hearing and it tell about televising of it this is not rocket science and i don't understand why we can't do that networking along that border in a  effective way we can and if we had if we had started with the assumption of let's look at the requirement let's look at what bandwidth we have and so forth and design systems we probably would have been ok but we didn't we started with the assumption that we can plug these things together and it will fit and once we did that we were in trouble because when it didn't fit we hadn't started from that normal natural beginning and now we had to make it fit and so we started the wrong way in my opinion that's true mr stana used the figure of six point seven knows what it's going to look like so how would they know and i'm just amazed that we spent over three billion dollars already and we don't have a system that works is just phenomenal to me but last i want to go to chief and ask about something that i'm interested in blimps you know we use it for weather purposes we use them in the military for aerial surveillance because they lowered or they can stay up for a very extended period of time do you currently use blips along the border for aerial surveillance  and if so how many and what kind of platforms do you use them for would you not currently use once we have test them in the past out in the field in arizona specifically we don't have any now we do flies radar aerostat along the southwest border but they're not surveillance one of the things that we are asking mr worked out beyond that is specifically to capability if he believes that a blimp is a proper requirements this is what the board an operational perspective they start doing the research and assessing what it is that bring us that capability in the most efficient effective and of course reasonable manner from a funding perspective i know that you've got like the drones but it's so expensive and you know the blips are being used by the military now by our weather services would like to look at that one of my concerns all along about the video cameras on poles they can be shot out and  the background of a number of my questions will be simply the conditions at the border that i think a well known and have accelerated over the last year the gun running the explosive  violence on the mexican side of the border spilling over to the u s border and the interest of the american people about whether or not this violence can be contained and what elements  using certainly f b i in it deals specifically with the issues of securing the border in ways that might capture the  less in doubt criminal because there are other ways to promulgate the violence that is going on the stand if you would give me what you think is the major or caylee's heel of this program the major indictment of this program if you would do that and cheese aguilar would you give me a status of the lawsuits and the negotiations dealing with this since this is part since part virtual that is  at the texas border and i'd also like to understand why there was an extension of the boeing contract and what is expected to be accomplished out of that extension w h stana first of all thank you with a broad stroke i would say getting something that works to spec has been the most difficult part of this program and project twenty eight was accepted it didn't meet all the specifications but it's within the right  of the secretary to accept it and he did back in march two thousand and eight it has been helpful but it has not worked to spec and now we're seeing the same thing i also would note that the spec for acceptance of block one is now of seventy percent i so that means when you're talking about drug runners or bad criminals can be accepted if they can find seven out of ten of them and i hope that would come three can really be explosive i hope i hope that that metric would come up because  figuring out three out of ten are going to get by and you can still accept the program as i understand that metric seems to me to be a lower bar than maybe we want what about the training of the border patrol agents their understanding comprehensive and comfortable company level with  it you know they have been trained to use project twenty eight they were trained on the mobile units and there was delay getting the mobile units fielded and deployed i think the border patrol is doing what it can to train but until this thing gets deployed you really won't have as mr thompson asked a question about the agents who said they were uncomfortable or didn't get their hands around it as we understand the border patrol agents were thoroughly familiar with m s s is and project the folks that are people ninety two miles of just in texas and i mention texas because that's where most of the lawsuits are happening at we intend to build one hundred and fifteen miles of total so we have about twenty three miles that are caught up in some results are we looking for at the end of this year the boeing contractor obviously boeing is in the process of building these things and testing them so we need to extend the contract will allow them to do that and in fact part of what's awkward about this contract is it has these independent task orders and those task orders have periods that are not the same as the master contract so we extended the contract to allow boeing to continue the work that was contracted the task orders because it's a task order contract extension just provides the flexibility to continue having boeing continue the work that's already contracted and if appropriate do follow on work so that's the reason we've extended the counter while my last seconds i just think that we need to have a steadfast monitoring of the progress here this is an ongoing saga of ten years plus and our borders are screaming for the right kind of security and america is screaming for the right kind of security in office briefings and i thank you all very much and i yield back thank you mr jackson lee and now i will recognize miss miller from michigan for five minutes thank you very much madam chairman i certainly want to thank you for calling this hearing net and i actually want to talk a little bit about what my experience in my region in our sector has been on the northern border and as always seems to happen we always talk about the southern border and believe me i'm not minimizing i'm very cognizant of all the problems we have in the and border but the northern border of our nation is twice as long and has similar challenges as well as some unique dynamics as well and a principal advocacy of mine of course i northern border and it was mentioned a little bit about some of the what's happening in the detroit sector in the buffalo sector with the f b i net but let me just say that our experience is happening very quickly and  hope you don't we don't want to lose him we really like him and he's doing a great job and i'll tell you as we have rolled out f b i net in the northern sector actually it's principally in my district course we always say in michigan you have the map in your state on the end of your hand here and we canada we have the two busiest border crossings on the northern tier are their real entry in the northern the entire country actually is there and all of this is happening and so we have a lot of the same kinds of things that are happening on the southern thing for me that has just want to speak to this as a positive experience is the roll out of all of these surveillance cameras you can imagine how we were all very concerned about how the public would say my gosh big brother all of a sudden you're putting these huge surveillance cameras in one of the busiest voting sectors for example in the entire world really people are out there sam what do you know i'm out there having a beer are you going to be looking or women whatever there were a lot of const there was a lot of public consternation about the rollout of this and i will tell you our detroit sector chief and c b p how they rolled it out they brought in all the affected stakeholders our local law enforcement officers the colony share of the obviously the coast guard which is one of your critical of partners our canadian counterparts  everybody and most importantly the public and how the public has accepted this now as not an intrusion into their privacy but something that they are looking forward to and i think the first thing with the f b i at the very first big box that we have as a result of these cameras will dissipate any public hesitation about it and how important critical a tool it is an element for border security going forward and i know i should ask a question but i just want to make the committee aware of what is happening here and speak to this and i was noticing this that the chairman put up here actually as we look at this one of the other things that's happening mr chairman members of the committee as well in our area i something called an operation integration center along the northern border because we have although in our case we have all the water and everything shown on here all of these various cameras and various types of things all of this data you have to collect the data right collect all the data analyze the data and then get it back out into the hands of the border patrol agents the brave men and women who are tasked with protecting our border and c b p is putting an opera operation integration center as well great lakes northern border wing which will be a pilot program for the northern border of analyzing all of this data and utilizing it in efficient manner and i think that is one of the things that we learned from nine eleven that was one of their big recommendations the ability you have to move from the need to know to the need to share information amongst all of the agencies and i know my time is running out here but i just wanted to mention that your time is actually run out my time is run out i would invite the committee to come and take a look firsthand of what is happening on the northern border and again our experience has been is very positive we are much looking forward to this and in our area miller i would just like to acknowledge your  continued efforts to talk about the northern border i know from a political standpoint and what america where he's about they're always talking about the southern border but the reality is we have three three real borders we have the southern border we have the northern border which is quite open as we still know and the resources and all don't seem to get there and we also have the maritime border and in particular we're very worried about the caribbean situation drugs coming in and people smuggling except for which also doesn't get as big a play and we are hoping on this committee at some point this year or early next year to address both the caribbean region and as well as the northern border and i was just talking to our ranking member and we will try it some point i hope to make a trip up to the northern border we did it a few years ago when we went to ny and the niagara buffalo area but it definitely is overdue and as we know this the stronger we become  one side some of the links we make them stronger than people go to the place where we're not paying much attention or this week or so definitely have it on our list and i thank you very much our next person will be mr pas impossible for the congress to enact real comprehensive immigration reform that's the bottom line and with all due respect and i thank them for the problem i don't think the technology is the problem it's our inability to articulate a coherent policy for practicing could put more personnel i mean we just just discovered we had a northern border in the last two years but then it disappeared the materialized but you can have more personnel more walls and fences and more electronics and we're good at that stuff you know like to work with that but we're not good at accomplishing what we set out to do and that is to have an overall plan and have a clear budget this budget certainly not clear to me maybe it's clear to all of you eve aguilar and mr murkowski have a simple question on the actual results we've seen from the secure border initiative since fiscal year two thousand and five as b r s funding has amounted to over three point seven billion dollars this year the department of homeland security has requested seven hundred and seventy nine million dollars in f b i funding for the fiscal year two thousand and my question is what are the actual results on the border before and after we have put all this funding into technology on the border and my second question and i'll have a third one but my second question is to be clear how many more illegal crossings have we stopped in the years since we started as as compared to the years before how many more drug seizures have we made how many weapons have we stopped from going towards the border because remember madam chair we weren't even concerned about all the weapons that were going from the united states down at the mexico which are not killing our guys and gals our guys and gals we certainly don't want to stop industry doing so i want those weapons to get to need to go over from all kinds of sources let's start with those two questions but again with the statistics that you asked for congressman the peak here for activity levels was the school year two thousand the year of nine eleven one point six million apprehensions of illegal entry between the ports of entry in addition to that post a million thousand are as we speak we're going to end up this year with about five and a half or five hundred fifty thousand apprehensions a decline of over sixty sixty two percent one of the reasons that we have been able to do that all by the way in the narcotics apprehensions is about two point five million pounds one of the reasons for that ability to increase markets apprehensions were good because our ability to focus on other threats such as narcotics when we mitigate the legal alien incursions we were able to focus our efforts on other one of the reasons we've been able to do that is because of some of these expenditures of funds some of these expenditures of funds capability it's not networked but it gives us a tremendous amount of enhanced meant to our agents what about the interdiction of weapons going from the united states to mexico we have actually increased our efforts as a priority and which border patrol specifically in this congress has actually given the border patrol forty four specific positions for next year in order for us to continue assisting but the main focus on weapons is thank you to the gentleman from new jersey when i began this hearing i spoke about metrics and trying to understand whether putting up a physical fence or putting up a virtual fence is really going to allow us to if you will take scarce resources and deploy them and use them better so that in fact we can bring down the apprehension bring down the number of people coming across  illegally get the number of drugs that we need to and mr pascoe i completely share your view that until we fix the immigration issue we will continue to have  excess people people trying to get into this country that really clutters up what we're really trying to do which is to get really bad guys get the drug dealers get people who would harm this country so unfortunately this is just one piece of that this is the piece of security and i think it's fair to say that the people in the united states don't believe that we have been doing a good job of securing our borders and that is why this f b i net that is why the resources that we are giving to chief aguilar and others that is why the physical fence in places where it does work is so important for this cause we need  to have a level of confidence in our american public that in fact we can keep we can be vigilant and we can keep people out and we can also catch the bad guys so i appreciate you bringing up the issue of how important committee and he and i have chaired many hearings together in particular looking at the issues of border security and that would be mr carney for five minutes thanks for waiting around to get a chance to ask  subject you are you mentioned early in your comments you have sort of a three legged stool and it's all interdependent you know i think one of the legs of the technology leg technology for example to a integrated system or a network of systems or technology is where we need to get to in addition to that we need to get to what are you doing now well as i said that is part  that void that we have articulated is in the we have technology we have standalone technology we are putting pieces together in a rudimentary fashion but we're working towards that integrated network system  it's being sold as a prototype as somehow some of a bit of a sleight of hand and it just it just rankles me to do now here that as a prototype in any event you said something that was interesting that you purchased several printers over the course of your time and and sometimes they work half of the time they work with advertise half the time they don't do you continue to buy those printer products that don't work as advertised you know it's interesting because we had this discussion at the department and when i had this was a senior leader of the department they said well that's why you buy a mac but the but the issue that you have and the question that we always have is if you go to you know as an individual when i go to buy a mac cost about three times a p c and so i'm going to make a conscious decision about do i want to pay the one third and pay the pain of always cramming in the printer or am i going to pay three times and have the high confidence  the thing and that's exactly the situation we're in and typically in the government we go with the one third cost and i'm not saying that was mostly a bad decision you could make that argument either way but that's essentially what happened to us predecessors what happened they said well we didn't have the eighteen in the contract and that was their answer we didn't have the a team on there i'm not sure how far down the alphabet they were but i want to believe that you are the team that you're going to do this well we want to be able to believe you but you have to understand in the context of what has happened in the past it is tough for this committee and certainly mike my subcommittee to believe your words until we see results in results are going to be absolutely essential and that the trials coming up here in the next couple of months we are going to be paying very close  fact it wouldn't surprise me if we get a request from this committee and in my subcommittee to observe them to be on the ground when they're going on because we're paying that close attention mr stan on the last question is for you and it's a it's a yes or no answer actually i know it's hard in government but has the has the american taxpayer so far got what they paid for thank you for the questions and i thank the gentleman one of the discussions chief aguilar you and i have had over time is we've now given you twenty thousand positions you've done a great job and in finding people trying to train them bringing them along and building a culture that is really about getting the bad guys but most the people across the border really have a reason to be crossing in and making sure that the people feel confident about that my question to you is because we had this discussion if we get f b i networking and if we put the physical fence in places as we have is that going to create more work in the sense for your workforce where you'll need more people or is that going to make the necessity not to have the twenty thousand agents that you currently have because the last time we discussed this i believe you said something to the fact i don't really know if my workforce will decline or whether we'll just be catching so many more people that i'm actually going to need more people to get them more people to detain them more people to put them through the process so what's the matter what do you think now and what's the metric how we're going to judge whether we're just making so much busy work in a sense for us and really not using the scarce resources of the american people to still go after the bad guys the terrorists the person the means to bring in chemical weapons which complexities that we're faced with is the work we're dealing with the obvious human criminal aspect everything that for every action that we take they are going to react whether it's because they are wanting to come into skrill and others have talked some about the north border somebody who worked narcotics issues for many years as well as that evolved into terrorism and did a border report after a series of hearings prior to nine nine eleven  creation of this committee and that the problems we have are common it's people in contraband that contraband can be narcotics a contraband can be chemical weapons or can be nucular and it is a constant challenge that the people can be coming for work they can be coming for terrorism they can be coming for id of reasons and the problem is if any can get through which is almost impossible to stop then any could be the one carrying a nuclear weapon and the challenge is how you get zero tolerance when you have these huge borders and that obviously requires intel which is critical and then it requires every every strategy part of the job of mr stan and your whole agency is to be a pain in the neck and dry to hold the the agencies accountable that you obviously don't have all the information but it provides an independent check and we need to to hear that constantly i don't know whether or not this program was a monopoly will be  justified and cost quite frankly i was one of the early skeptics because i felt this was an excuse to avoid building a real fans and dealing with it and was to massive approach rather than  building block approach and if you did did twenty eight miles when you have a lot of borders we aren't with this much money in twenty miles it wasn't going to be workable i don't agree with the statement that some of us didn't raise that question in the very beginning we had questions as to what the deal is with this this isn't the prototype was an ideal structure that in the military world would have been incredibly expensive in this world we don't have the dollars to do it you can see certain advantages with the usa vs going up you can see where the gun is our agents that have been killed in in california had they had technology to tell him that there were three guys there with a gun and he would have been assassinated if you can see  where organ pipe where park ranger was killed if we would have had information that of would have been able to get down to them there they would have been able to see where his gun was they've been able to see where the drugs were that's incredibly expensive and the question is what can we do that's reasonable that's workable on on both borders to add technology to the people and to the other methods that we're using because they're always going to change and she's aguilar definitely made a terrific point in this what we do with the narcotics all the time where you push them out more you increase their expense you reduce the numbers you have more chances that they'll trip up more chances that you'll see them and the whole goal here is that we're never going to reach one hundred percent with the degree we make it harder agree we the more likely are we're going to catch them and we're much more aware than we were on nine eleven now my my fundamental question is that there were some signs in suggesting that you were going to look at the this in january and see whether it would proceed and at some point if we're going to do the whole border particularly we're doing the north to congress still hasn't seen a what the range of the cost of this project is the only way we can do that is to take ok years we did for twenty miles an hour redoing that with deuce on one we're going to strap that what percent of that extrapolate then you wind up with these huge figures that scare congress off that do you see yourself because ultimately we need some sort of quote effective control of the border do you see yourself of outing towards another strategy  faster strategy a more of a building block strategy what you see mr koski we see ourselves as going to a building block strategy so what we have at this point is we have a plan that if it's appropriate that talks about covering the whole border and we need to be prepared to execute that plan but like you we don't have all the data we need to convince ourselves that that's the right plan it may make more sense to be a little more selective about where we put this so for example one of these areas of responsibilities covers about twenty to forty miles a border that's roughly the range and it costs us loosely speaking about fifty million dollars to cover that you know to put it in now there's the operation costs so you can start to see that as we figure out what the effectiveness of this is compared to other lower cost or other types of technology which is the reason i'm having these three to six hours of meetings every week to collect those other technologies we will gain some experience here and then the department's going to be in a position to say ok we're prepared we're prepared to cover the whole border but before we do that let's take some of this experience and say is that really the most cost effective way to mix infrastructure technology in personnel in all parts of the border so our strategy has been be prepared to do it get to the point where you're prepared to do it as quickly as told but also make sure as you do it you have incremental steps where you can check and we can have this discussion about how much is the right amount in each part of the border so they end important for anybody who is watching this hearing or reviews a record of this hearing to understand that while we're focused on this sector of arizona which continues to have plus douglas the most intense pressure although we don't know what we don't know the fact is is that the area of conflict and numbers back and i might remind my ranking member that the border is much more than just a land border off that we there's a reason why we called the border maritime and global counterterrorism other homeland security keeps on changing the goal makes it more difficult for them to do you know the folks to do what they have to do it's my understanding that various at various times  it has become apparent that the f b i would not be able to meet established performance criteria that the department has simply lowered its standards rather than fixing the problems with the system at one point there were nine such criteria we talked about this few years ago now there's three at one point the system was supposed to wait and classify eighty five percent of the on and entries now it's only seventy percent so much to stand on what can you tell us about the performance criteria for both projects twenty eight and tucson one how do they compare and are we grading on a curve with respect to project twenty eight the criteria there was ninety five percent plus or minus five percent so that was much higher for block one i believe the objective is eighty five percent but the thrust except ability is seventy percent i would hope that over time that bar would go up a little bit that seems a little bit low i think two thousand and ten is going to be a crucial year with these operational tests and if the technology turns out to work with a few tweaks or right out of the gate that's great we all hope it works if it doesn't then perhaps the department needs to anticipate you've looked at this and or you've overseen this situation for quite some time now you witnessed the changes i've talked about the goals changing what's the main ne but we're not we're not getting it done and while that's not getting done we are not responding to the major problem of immigration the fact the economy of america has more to do with the immigration than any of our brilliant ideas about how we're going to make sure we know comes into this country from wherever they're coming north south for you know planets doesn't matter what your analysis well i would i would put it this way this is an extremely difficult thing to do we can talk about hooking up printers and i think i understand he's trying to use a metaphor here but it almost over simplifies the task in setting contract to talk about the whole northern and southern border in three years now we're like every time we have one of these hearings everything is going to be fixed and we're disappointed maybe it is time to really able to deal with the winds that you have to expect down in arizona or is there another plan i know the border patrol likes m s s is a sort of a small area so they have their problems too but in thinking about this and it's a good question maybe the situation because what if we had a robust immigration policy that we can come together that would certainly affect the traffic on any of our  bipartisan manner to attempt to do that and keep the politics out of this although as mr souter and i were just discussing there are always politics involved whether it's immigration policy or the border except one more question for you because as the chairwoman of the s particular again one that is titled border maritime and global counterterrorism as you probably hear and i hear this over and over and we talked or the membership some of us have made some trips to some of the area more areas to be secured we're talking about the colombia drug issue facal our you spoke about how people are avoiding the land now and they're going around and coming through the ocean we appreciate your comments and i just want to mr peters you didn't have too many questions this representing boeing there i just want to let you know this is not about a witch hunt is about trying to figure out how we make a system work because the american people are not only are we tasked with spending the money to do so but we have such a broad issues out there or that affects so many people on a day to day basis that if we can't get this under control if we can't work together we can't figure it out you know it's very difficult to to work on some of these and have the confidence to work on some of these other issues that are out there so i want to thank all of you for being the for today for your valuable testimony i want to thank the members for having attended so well and the members of the subcommittee may have some additional questions for you we'll put them in writing we hope you'll get them back to us as quickly as possible and here we know for their business this sub