test part two good morning and i would like to thank take a second to thank chairman clay are in his subcommittee for continuing to work with my subcommittee on this issue so thank you  today we are here to receive testimony on the department of homeland security's efforts to secure the nation's borders through the secure border initiative technology or s p i also known as f b i net according to the g a report released today in titled security border initiative d h s needs to reconsider its proposed investment in key technology program poorly defined requirements and limitations in the capabilities of commercially available system components have led the department to downgrade its expectations for s b i net the result will be a deployed and operational system that like project twenty eight may not live up to expectations and provide less mission support than was originally envisioned as boeing developed a system it became clear it would not meet the requirements established by the department as opposed to that the requirements were satisfied the number of component level requirements was reduced from twelve hundred eighty six to eight hundred eighty or by about thirty two percent some examples of requirements that received waivers or deviations include unintended ground sensors that could not differentiate between human being call an atmel targets since they were only able to identify potential vehicles not humans and animals this requirement was changed the daytime cameras to identify humans were judged to be operationally in a affective over five kilometers while the requirement indicated that the cameras should be effective to ten kilometers the laser range finder was determined to have an effective range of less than two kilometers while the requirement for the effective range was again ten kilometers the geographic locations that will deploy s d i net capabilities have also been reduced as of september two thousand and eight the initial block one deployment was to span three border patrol sectors tucson yuma and el paso for a total of six hundred fifty five miles deployment to these three areas was the priority of the border patrol due to the high threat levels at present the only areas expected to be covered by f b i net technology on the southwest border are tucson and a whole the department has not yet estimated a reliable lifecycle cost of deploying block one in violation of all when be regulations the cost estimate should include all government and contractor costs over the program's full  lifecycle from program in substance through design development deployment operation and maintenance all the way to retirement according to the g a o the cost estimate calculated by the department does not include all relevant costs such as support current contractor costs costs associated with system and software design development and all testing activities furthermore the cost estimate has not been updated to reflect program changes that have occurred since its development in response to g a o is findings department officials indicated that the d h s cost analysis division was unable to prepare an accurate cost estimate due to a shortage in the personnel and the tools needed to do so it also is indicated that as of july two thousand and nine there were only eight cost estimate hers six and headquarters and two in program offices for the entire department of homeland security f b i net has been plagued with a number of technology and system integrations issues as highlighted by the g a o over one point one billion dollars has been spent on the secure border initiative and over eight hundred million has been spent on s b a alone fifty three miles at a cost of one point one billion is unacceptable that our last hearing on s b i net in march i asked if we could get a refund and i believe the taxpayers would still like one now perhaps some good has come from this program but not nearly enough to justify the funding and the time that has been spent on this program and i urge that apartment to continue to explore alternative means to secure the border in a timely and effective matter one of thank the witnesses for their testimony i look forward to hearing from them the chair now recognizes the ranking member of the management investigations and oversight subcommittee the gentleman from florida for an opening statement thank you mr chairman and i want to welcome the witnesses the cost effective course of action and thoughts whether the considerable time and money being invested to acquire and deploy it is a wise and prudent use of limited resources as i noted at our last year ng on s p i net in march it is simply unacceptable that our borders are not secure i along with many of my colleagues and anxious away awaiting the results of the secretary's assessment of s p i net and her strategy for securing the border going forward i'm interested in hearing from our witnesses about when we can to support the completion of this assessment what is the status of the plan to redeploy fifty million dollars in recovery act funds originally intended for block one and two other commercially available border security technologies when where and when will this technology be deployed i'm also supportive of deploy national guard troops to the border but once again the department has not provided this committee with the details of its plan this piecemeal approach and consistent lack of details makes me question whether the secretary has a comprehensive strategy for securing our borders i'm also troubled by the themes that run through many of the departments large scale procurements many of the findings related to  and is cost effective is similar to the g a o findings on procurement such as a transformation and systems consolidation the department's financial management consolidation effort and both procurement there is an inability to reliably estimate the overall cost of the project mr chairman we on the management subcommittee must work to ensure that the department has the resources and staffing  it needs to develop the vital acquisition management capabilities such as cost estimation and we can make sure these functions at the headquarters level i fear that we won't continue to see problems in these large scale germany with that i'd like to welcome our witnesses again i look forward to your testimony securing our borders is essential to homeland security and we have to get it right thank you mr chairman  sign again we talked about it will spend a little bit more time talking about that and again i'm one of those i'd like to recognize the good parts because there are some improvements but we still got a look at some of the efforts as you know i do represent a border district hundred eighty seven miles and includes only tucson sector over the last fifteen months the number of system requirements has dropped from twelve eighty six to thirty two percent  would take us roughly to the year two thousand and thirty four thousand and thirty four multiply one point three billion every four years and get to twenty thirty four that will give us a large number and i know we can do better and we working together by addressing this issue will be able to address it at this time i want to thank the witnesses for being here and keep in mind that we're not here to try to catch anybody we're trying to see how do we make things work and so it's not  chairman and mr chairman appreciate you both holding this joint hearing today interested listening to the comments about f b i net an experience that our nation has had on the southern border i'd like to make a couple of comments about our experience with that on the northern border we have a modified version of f b i net mainly involving camera towers and mobile surveillance equipment that's been deployed in two primary locations both the buffalo in detroit and in the detroit sector which actually runs through my congressional district so i'm very familiar with it we have ten of the eleven towers that have been proposed already installed they cover approximately thirty seven miles along the river which is an international river between michigan and canada if you think of the map of michigan a river is running recognize mr burke who was there when we had our community roll out which went very very well the towers and the cameras have been installed they're operating with minor delays and actually accepted the program of the system in april of this year in operational control of the border must be a top and urgent priority and i understand what is happening on the southern border i understand the problems there believe me i'm sensitive to and i still think it's important to point out there's a lot we don't know about illegal activity happening on the northern border because  we are sufficient to border patrol resources and technology in fact there are only thirty two miles considered to be under effective control on the northern border which is a four thousand mile long border and i think when we have our first big get if invested nearly one billion dollars in this technology and so we don't want to let it go to waste and i think as the department moves ahead with either f b i net or another system i think we obviously all have to think about is already been mentioned we need to be good stewards of the taxpayer money and make use of the investments that we have made an f b i net thus far i'm also a bit concerned by the department backtracking on the end goal of providing central detection and identification capability for the border patrol i would say what one of the things that concerns me most about the efforts to secure the border is the lack of a cohesive or coherent plan from the department on how to move forward we find that nearly every month either the parliament or particularly the white house announces a new initiative or assessment but then we don't see any results or progress i would just mention in january secretary napolitano announced the review of f b i net plus an assessment of alternatives to see what other technology could be used on the border and that has been six months and i don't think we're any closer to knowing how we're going to proceed up to twelve hundred additional national guard troops i think everybody welcome this change but again it's been twenty three days since that announcement has been made incredibly no additional information has been provided on how the money would be spent how many additional border announcement and i would just close by mentioning one other issue that's been in the news this week and that is that this week ice announced significant changes for illegal aliens in their detention standards this may not be the place to talk about that but i will mention this because it had had a lot of interest around the nation apparently moving forward a number of the facilities will now be offering bingo in dance classes twelve hour visitation rights and a snack bar i raise it because i think this shows the disconnect between the priorities of this administration and of the majority of the american people about the will that we have as a nation for securing our borders and i think we certainly need to see a sense of urgency from the administration to develop a very clear strategy for gaining control of the border with that i would yield back my time thank you chairman thank you other members of the subcommittee subcommittees are reminded that under committee rules opening statements may be submitted for the record i'd like to welcome our concerning architecture and systems acquisition development operations and maintenance during his thirty year career with g a o mr hyatt has directed reviews of major federal id investments including jess's border security modernization programs are second witness mr mark borkowski mr barr koski was named executive director of the secure border initiative program executive office in october of two thousand and was a program executive for the robotic lunar exploration program at nasa headquarters our third witness chief michael j fisher was named chief of the border patrol on may seventh two thousand and ten in that role chief fisher serves as the nation's highest ranking border patrol agent and directs the enforcement efforts of more than twenty thousand border patrol agents responsible for patrolling our nation's borders between the official ports of entry from january third two thousand and ten until his main appointment she fisher served as the acting chief prior to that appointment he served as chief of border patrol san diego sector she fisher started his duty along the southwest border in one thousand nine hundred seven in douglas arizona after completion of the selection process for the border patrol tactical unit in one nine hundred ninety he was selected as a feel operations supervisor for the tactical unit assigned to el paso g fisher has also served in detroit and tucson at the border patrol headquarters our fourth witness mr roger crone is president of network and space systems for the boeing company before the formation of network and space systems mr crone was vice president and general manager of boeing's army systems helped several other business management and financial positions in boeing's u s army programs and military rotorcraft and boeing military aircraft and missile systems without objection the witnesses false statements will be inserted into the record oversight the oversight by you and your staff on f b i net in my opinion you've made a difference in bringing attention to a program that from the outset has been troubled and despite the addition of some new and qualified program leader ship has been struggled to write itself over the last eighteen months today we are releasing the latest in a series of reports that we have done on f b i net this report was issued to you on may fifth of this year and like the prior reports in this series we continue to sound the alarm about program uncertainties management weaknesses performance shortfalls and risks in particular we reported early on the d h s was investing heavily in a system solution without committing to what system capabilities would be delivered by when and at what cost and without linking capabilities to measurable mission outcomes or benefits we also reported that the manner in which the program was being executed was extremely wanting to the point that it was unlikely that the delivered system would meet mission needs and perform as intended we further reported the changes to the program milestones were all too frequent and the program's exposure to risk because of the uncertainties the shortfalls and the and the weaknesses was not being adequately disclosed and mitigated more recently we reported what i described in this hearing room three months ago as the good the bad the ugly about i that was being tested as well as a disconcerting trend in the number of unresolved system problems that was not indicative of a maturing system our latest report continues to raise serious concerns about the program's commitments and it execution i will summarize the report's message by making four points point number one while the h s is finally committed to what capabilities the first increment of s d i net is to include these capabilities have continued to shrink in terms of what the system is to do and how well and where it is to do it one example that deals with the geographic footprint that many of you have already described another deals with the system performance of the system that has been relaxed to the point that it will be deemed acceptable if but forty nine percent of the items of interest across the board or can be identified point to the schedule being used to execute the program that was available at the time of our review did not adequate capture when and in what order the work needed to deliver the system would occur at the same time milestones for the program have continued to be pushed out into the future as a result we do not have any confidence that the most recent set  program milestones associated with accepting the system will be met point number three day just has yet to demonstrate and many of you have made this point as well that f b i net will not produce mission benefits that are commensurate with the system's december two thousand eight estimated cost of one point three billion dollars in particular this estimate is not reliable for a litany of reasons and measurable benefits expected from the system will not be known according to d h s and to the system has been deployed and can be operationally evaluated in effect the h s is saying that it will have to invest more than a billion dollars in f b i net before we will know whether doing so is economically justified and cost effective these are the other technology alternatives point number four d h s s continue to fall short and application of acquisition management discipline or rigor associated with for example requirements definition and management such discipline is absolutely necessary to raise a reasonable ensure the capability benefit cost and schedule commitments on a program like f b i net can be met not surprisingly the h s is established a pattern of not living up to f net commitments simply put the answers to the two most basic questions associated with successfully acquiring a system like f b i net namely are we doing the right thing and are we doing it the right way right now the answers would be we don't know and now we're not as as many of you mentioned after having invested almost a billion dollars in five years the answers to these questions should be yes in closing let me end on a positive note by saying that the h s has agreed with many of our recommendations and has already taken action aimed at addressing them for example program office has taken steps to improve its risk management efforts also d h as secretar ordered assessment of s d i net these of the alternative system solutions as decided to limit further investment in the initial increment until this assessment is completed both actions are consistent with the key recommendation in our reporting i should add however  chairman carney chairman quaoar ranking member miller distinguished members of the committee thank you again for this opportunity to describe what we are trying to do to deal with the issues you have described and this is a continuation of the hearing from march and are written testimony is pretty much that testimony but i'll try to recap a little bit and give an update as to where we are compared to what we said in march as we discussed then the secretary has ordered a reassessment of the program and in fact has frozen funds beyond those required to complete what's already started those are the two areas of s d i not block one deployment known as tucson one and a whole one those areas that you described described and that's driven by the same concerns the secretary has concluded made come to the same conclusions that the committee has already identified as has the g a o which is that we suffer from two fundamental flaws one is we need to become convinced that the program we've designed is actually even viable the second is that we need to become convinced that even if it is a viable that is the raw way to spend money that we're getting value for that money so that is the purpose of the secretary's assessment is to answer those two questions before we invest more money in s  is a technology which we don't yet have but which we have endeavored to develop it includes fixed towers that have radars and cameras and it includes the computer software in the commute communication network that allows all of that information from all of those towers to be combined in one place so it can be acted on by the border patrol so it is that technology configuration and it is that technology configuration that's designed to work at the beginning in arizona we call that f b i net block one there is other technology that f b i provides for example the northern border technology that congress will miller talked about for mobile surveillance systems so we do have alternatives and we do have options but s p n that block one is the development of something that we hoped would give us a step function increase in capability by allowing us to network a depiction of what's going on in one area and we have frankly failed in delivering what was promised at the beginning so we would not argue with your characterization chairman carney so the question for us has been what do we do now so we are looking at this system and we are looking at this the cost effectiveness of it there are two fundamental questions as i said that the secretary's assessment is designed to get at one is the system viable and the way that we intend to assess that is by completing tucson one and a whole one going through the testing that's required to characterize it and then using that as a quantitative measure of what this system does we will also of course know what it costs at that point not just what it cost to develop but what it cost to produce in a recurring way so that'll give us insight into the viability as i told you in march we expected to have the engineering test results for tucson one by september and we're still on schedule for that and we expected to have engineering test results for our whole one by the end of the calendar year and we're still  schedule for that the other part of the assessment is the question of whether or not it's even if it works is it worth it there are other technologies so i can have less capability less dollars more capability and more dollars the question is do i get value for those more dollars that's the quantitative science based assessment the secretary's talked about and we're doing that in some phases because it's a it's a deliberative effort and the first of those we should have data by the the end of june and the date will be focused on analysis of arizona and then based on that we can extend that analysis to other parts of the border but what that's designed to do is to compare s p i net block one to other technology options in a very quantitative science based way so we can make more intelligent decisions about where it makes sense to spend money on this system that quantitative analysis depending on how that looks will continue into other areas of the border before we make any commitments to those areas of the border i also want to mention that we talked about a near term assessment where we would look at the fifty million dollars of stimulus funds that had been regionally designed for s v n at block one and in fact we have concluded to divert those to other technology including many more mobile surveillance systems sensors for our aircraft backscatter radars for border patrol checkpoints and even pursue cameras for our office of field operations customs and border protection officers at the ports so we're in the process of acquiring those and we expect to please thank you chairman carney chairman quaoar and members of the committee it's been three months since we last appeared here to discuss the f b i in its program and i'm pleased to be able to report good performance by our team and excellent progress in meeting the milestones of all the projects we are working on to northern border projects have been accepted by the customs and border patrol and the two southern projects are on track for completion on the schedules we discussed in march early operations of the tucson one system continues to be very successful and we plan to extend early operations to our second deployment in august with continued good performance we expect to have both of the systems permanently in the hands of the border patrol by the end of the year this program was transferred to my business unit in august of two thousand and seven i'd like to provide a little background that might put some perspective on the comments from the general accountability office that we're discussing here today the original concept i net was to create a spiral development program utilizing to the maximum degree of commercial off the shelf equipment in order to get a capability to the southwest border as quickly as possible as such many of the twelve best practice program management recommendations by the g a o in today's report were not proposed bid nor implemented in the original f b i net program however since the program transitions for i'd call the p twenty eight phase to the block one phase many of the suggested scheduling systems engineering requirements and baseline management and risk management processes have been implemented today the program is run in a man very similar to a department of defense a cat one or two program the g a o questions whether the f b i is and i quote a cost effective course of action although the value question is best addressed by the customs and border patrol relative to other means of securing the border i would like to clarify where the government's money has been spent on the program to date the g a o states and i quote f b i net is being acquired and deployed in incremental blocks of capability with the first block to cost about one point three billion this representation is not entirely accurate and bears some clarification first of the one point three billion four hundred forty one million has been spent to construct thirty two miles of physical fence and purchase one hundred forty thousand tons of steel mesh for other fence construction utilizing the numbers in table one of the g a o report updated for current cost performance we can see the remaining eight hundred twenty eight million has been spent in the following way four hundred eighty four million has been spent for non recurring design development supplier and program management and the construction of the systems integration lab in pliocene for the block one system and construction of the network operations center and systems operations center in springfield virginia most of this investment will not be repeated if we complete additional appointments beyond those under contract eighty million dollars was spent for design and development of the command and control software to drive the block one system referred to as the common operating environment also a nonrecurring investment and seventy one million dollars has been spent for contractor logistics support of p twenty eight block one and other border surveillance systems so of the one point three billion only a hundred and ninety five million has been spent on actual deployments of technology solutions to the border under the f b i program and of that twenty million has been spent on the buffalo and detroit northern border towers twenty million has been spent twenty eight that covers twenty eight miles of arizona border and one hundred fifty five million which is our current estimate complete what we call the arizona deployment cass corridor more commonly known as and one which will cover twenty five and thirty miles of the border respectively a total of fifty five miles we know today that we have a system that the border patrol agents helped design are using a real operations along the arizona mexico border in september we expect to have successfully accomplished system acceptance test for tucson one and two complete system acceptance testing of a whole one by the end of the year the government has almost finished is to investment in the development of the block one system deployments beyond tucson one in a whole one will be done on a fixed price basis at prices significantly lower than those of the arizona deployment order with reliable schedules based upon demonstrated performance that geo recommends that the government answer the question as to the value of the f b i in that program at boeing we're hopeful that such assessments will lead to a positive outcome and we can get restarted on further deployments and help our customers secure the border thank you very much prepared to answer any questions you might have thank you and i'd like to thank all the witnesses for their testimony and provide each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the witnesses and allow recognize myself for five minutes begin with with you mr high as you know the secretary spend seen it certainly is a legitimate question that to pose at this point in time but if i was in a position to make that decision now based on what i know i would be asking for more information to inform my decision certainly the original project was contracted and envisioned is far and away a lot greater than we have in reality today with the project absolutely why what has happened to see sort of  shrinkage of capability a lot of things in combination have contributed to that not the least of which is an underestimation over optimism about what could be  delivered what it would take in order to accomplish that optimism surrounding what's available in the commercial marketplace underestimating what it's going to take to integrate those components  s witness mentioned the program originally set out under a spiral development approach which my personal opinion is a risky approach to take and it evolved over time and so  the definition and the implementation of the kind of acquisition of rigor that my experience has shown that can contribute to a successful program wasn't there the outset  don't think the program had the people it needed to run it successfully from the outset so i mean this as i mentioned in my oral statement is this this program was in trouble months after it was started and it was spiraling downhill after that and so you know as i mentioned despite here in the last eighteen to twenty four months bringing in more capability trying to address some of these limitations it's hard to you know redirect an iceberg once it started moving in one direction and that's you know what we've been faced with at least icebergs can block something why have the thresholds been here mr kronk you answer my question well first of all i think we've improved the cameras but having said that what we did is we selected commercially available off the shelf hardware and we tried to do that in a way at the time and this in hindsight may have been a mistake so i'm not i'm not trying make excuses for it but at the time when we had a very ambitious schedule what we did is we compromise the formants of some of the hardware in order to get it in time to meet the van anticipated schedule now in hindsight that turned out not to be wise because we both failed to meet that schedule and then did up with cameras that were probably less than optimal now having said that we grew most of the cameras and i don't want people to think that we haven't but that those two things sort of conspired the interest in commercially available quickly available to support a schedule and support a c it up causing us to make compromises in specific components i would concur with that i would also i think mention that we are in tweaking with the cameras and working on their performance in many scenarios today they actually exceed the ten kilometer range but the range in which they work is certainly dependent upon the environment the atmospheric conditions and there are some conditions where they don't have the ten kilometer range but in other places we've actually seen them and operations in early operations where they exceeded the range and the initial deployment of the cots hardware didn't meet spec or our expectations and we've been working hard with the customs and border patrol to improve their performance thank you  sir tension to use as i said during my statement i know you mentioned the fifty million dollars in the recovery funds i'm i'm aware that there's promising d o d technology mr brokaw being used on the border w the redeployed recovery act funding be used to revers just leverage this technology the specific technology no not with the stimulus funding however as we go forward and make decisions about what's the right technology we have talked to the d o d in fact many elements of the of the as well as by the way many many vendors probably well over hundreds of conversations i've had both with the odeon vendors and we'll use all of that as candidates for the appropriate understand fiscal year two thousand and nine there were nearly eleven hundred saw some border patrol agents based on statistics recently provided to the committee through may thirty first there have been nearly eight hundred assau on border patrol agents this fiscal year with more than one hundred or assaults alone a man where's the reason for this escalation of violence against the border patrol agents and what resources do c p o's and border patrol been terms of protective equipment and training to ensure their safety and the protection along for lawful travelers as well with respect to your first question as it relates to the cause of violence across the southwest border and between the ports of entry i'll just offer a general state because a lot of different reasons depending upon the area depending upon which transnational criminal organization happens to own that area in which we're operating but in general terms what we've seen over the years and consistent what we're seeing so far this year is that there is generally a cause and effect of what we do with respect to our enforcement posture at the ports of entry and between the ports of entry by the way i should mention those aren't being done independently those are being done collectively within the field leadership because we recognize that the criminal organizations historically have tried to exploit at the ports in the between the ports so what we're doing in joint planning o joint enforcement posture is we're making a difference in the criminal organizations to operate in these particular areas where historically they've operated with impunity and where we are making a difference to criminal organizations or adjusting their tactics some of those and so that as a general statement we've seen that over time and certainly we're seeing that as well this year how about the protective equipment as of that as well again throughout the year as we start seeing the evolution if you will of that threat as an operator we take that into consideration in planning and making sure that the agents and officers are trained properly they have the equipment and what we've instituted over the years that we're currently deploying today in forms of less lethal capabilities that would take the form of three o three s pepper ball systems right here and we also have specially trained officers and border patrol agents that when we know we need to go into a particular area and the threat assessment indicates that the part of propensity of violence may be high we go ahead and deploy those troops in advance with extra quitman extra training to make sure that we do go in and force those areas that we do have the appropriate agents that are trained and deployed rapidly efficiently and cost effectively how much would it cost and how long would it take to deploy this technology to additional border patrol sectors at the time that we were put on stop work we had mile sector at that time we had rough order of magnitude estimate at complete again these are not contractual numbers and when we're put on contract i'm sure we'll have a negotiation with mark the actual numbers but for when we say to the taxpayer that we can secure the border and how much would it cost block one or whatever is appropriate aeration put that all along the southwest border with some ambitious but potentially realistic funding assumptions and we've talked about those numbers before we've talked about eight billion dollars and we've talked about two thousand and sixteen two thousand and seventeen that's probably worse by the way probably very unlikely because i doubt that we would conclude that s d i net is the right answer for the entire border but that's a worst case assessment so the challenge for the secretary's assessment of the partment now is ok we've got that worst case assessment it has very ambitious funding assumptions because obviously was based on funding but is that the right answer and can we get some things more quickly if we go to other technology less expensively if we go to other technology and we hopeful that through this assessment process find better tailor technology so that we can accelerate that with the appropriate technology at lower cost compared to the worst case that baseline but we haven't built it yet and won't build budgeting and again we hope we can do better after we go through the assessment but that's kind of the way the baseline was laid out don't expect to execute that baseline i want to be very clear of that but in order to the problem that's probably the best place to start money wise well the estimate for f b i net across the southwest border was eight billion dollars now again to be fair that estimate suffers from some of the deficiencies that mr hyde has described but that is the estimate that we've had up to this point packaging of it i agree wholeheartedly with the findings the g a o has identified weaknesses in this program and yes we do talk now we don't get together before the day of the hearing and compare notes but the jail is with us all the time we have many well maybe we should in fact that's not a bad idea but he does come in and share his ideas not on every week basis but probably every couple of months so yes we do compare notes let me just give you my  we had a deputy sheriff in arizona shot and we just had a shooting on the el paso so warres border and every day we hear a news story about some violent killing more people died in mexico at the hand of the drug cartels than  the wars in iraq and afghanistan combined and so my constituents the american people they get frustrated and they want this to happen now and when they hear twenty sixteen twenty seventeen and all of you understand th as i understand your testimony by the end of june mr barak will have an assessment on that not of that by the end of june but will have done is this so called quantitative science based assessment to the experience of the agency which has been very encouraging but is not quantitative its subject so to put it in other words what the agents are seeing and doing they like what we don't know is are we seeing in doing all the things that we're supposed to be seeing and doing that's the system acceptance testing we talked about that would be completed to someone in september so we'll combine that they will be measurable we'll have some measures will combine them with the qualitative assessments of the agents and will characterize the the border and saw technologies that we're using in afghanistan on the pakistan border the taxpayers already paid for and it seems to me we had two years in that not a dip kate efforts and use that same technology on the south west border where it's needed i think you agree with that good sensor technology surveillance technology we saw in operation the other day that uses radio frequency to shut down vehicles boats i mean have several new arizona but not enough in texas and in my view work where i come from i know my time's limited but i wanted to follow up on something mr barr koski you said that as we can't secure the border with just technology i think technology is an important bands but also things like roads and lights and then personnel so technology what we use technology primarily for is to give us an awareness of what's going on technology can respond to that where news and by the way people give us that awareness so there's a and cuts to border patrol agents staffing i don't think that's the right direction now i know that the president just came out recently and i commend him for that with five hundred million dollars emergency spending and twelve hundred national guard to the my constituents are very frustrated about the use of the national guard they don't understand why they can't do what they're trained to do down there that they're basically assigned to desk and they push paper as opposed to providing security on the border  and i share that frustration i know there are some legal obstacles to that but what do you what do you see is the use of the national guard on the border and certainly i wouldn't argue with  enough indication if you will that you have a tough job and you're trying to do it as best you can so i appreciate what you're trying to do in exceedingly difficult circumstances and you be commended thank you i would like to start with the basic premise from which securing the border has to and that premise is this a definition of security when we say we want to secure the border the public hears prevent people from entering that's what the public hears what have we c definition of securing the border and who is best suited to do this if you want to raise a hand recognize you are just start  talking and thank you for the comments and thank you for your continued support on our mission i too have been thinking over the years and more recently over the last few months about securing the border border and in hearing also both you know within the organization as we look at our strategy  that means we do have tactical definitions by which we measure that because each and every day the field chiefs along with their field commanders assess to what extent are they achieve in the objectives we start there from an operational perspective what that tells us is when we look at prevention we look at identification and classification and responding in all the things that we try to measure how well we're doing against that the ultimate objective what we're trying to accomplish ultimately is to be able to reduce the likelihood that dangerous people and dangerous capabilities enter between the ports of entry now what you didn't hear when also was thrown in to secure the border is sealing the border and what's interesting when you look at as measures what is it that we're trying to accomplish and be measured there's a there's an expectation certainly and then there's areas for instance where we have detection capability and we have infrastructure and we have the vast majority of border patrol agents and we have those areas where we have gained effective operational control again the highest operational and tactical definition which tells us levels of activity in terms of how many people are coming in and how many people are we are arresting and even in some of those areas those vulnerabilities exist when they tunnel underneath when they use ultra lights to go over arizona court or for instance where when i was a border patrol agent last there just a short ten years ago there was over four hundred twenty arrests in a particular area and then you compare that with today and i'm not suggesting that two hundred forty apprehensions last year was good i'm just saying the comparative that would suggest that we're doing something in reducing the likelihood because what we're seeing also as we reduce the likelihood that those dangerous people and dangerous capabilities can come in we also are able to move some of that threat and put them out into some areas where we do have time try to get them out of there was urban areas where historically they've operated thank you sir i have one additional question and i'd like for just the height and the crow to respond to this question if the plan is one hundred percent effective what percentage of people will we prevent from entering the country if the plan is one hundred percent effective what percentage of people were prevented from entering the country and we'll start with you mr crone if you would please  s it's it's it's a it's a great question i can tell you on a given day what the radar will do what the camera will do i can tell you the performance that we've observed i can talk about probabilities of to attack and probabilities to individual once we detect them and those are all parameters of the system going been asked to design but i don't as the contractor had the ability to answer the whole question and when you combine tactical infrastructure the border patrol agents and the technology ication as to what percentage of persons will be prevented from entering no sir i do not mr fisher so i will tell this committee quite honestly that i cannot guarantee with any amount of technology personnel or infrastructure that nobody will ever penetrate the borders between the ports of entry either underneath over and by the air what i can guarantee is our continuous efforts again and working with that right combination working with the intelligence community and identifying that threat and in cases where we do have somebody that comes across the border that we will have the capacity and the capability to respond and mitigate any potential impact against that threat well the reason i ask is because it would seem to me that if we're going to spend billions of dollars we ought to have some goal some idea as to what we'll we will ultimately accomplish after spending percentage of persons will we present from coming into the country if our plan is one hundred percent effective a couple things congressman i can't give you a pretty specific number i can say this border enforcement at the border is not enough in and of itself ok so we're talking about securing the borders themselves but there are other factors that impact preventing people from coming across there which is why there is and i'm and i'm not commenting on the policy but  i have to emphasize there's into interior enforcement there's immigration reform issues with this so we're talking about border security the goal of border security at the border is to know what's going on to some high level of confidence across the whole border and to have the opportunity respond to that knowledge as we see fit when we see fit so that's what our technology is designed to give us to charlie what's going on magistad and those are the one additional person please mr hyde did you respond yesterday and your opinion is again that i didn't have the answer to your question do you as a person who works with this closely do you believe that we should have an answer to that question that we should have some gold so i believe that we should have a goal i think a goal and in the terms that you were asking about with that level of precision is it would be very very difficult not impossible to have that it is a very complicated in the low to mid twenty's do you believe you are adequately staffed for the for the mission post post training so their value in the force multiplying capability is going to be enhanced over the next few years and so that's why our measure does it's not just the numbers it's what we're seeing as it relates to the training the maturity level additional technology and then what we're seeing those  benefits right now as we look at personnel technology and infrastructure as everybody has mentioned here the other other critical piece for our organization is a new way of thinking which suggests that not just those three things are going to get us operational control with however that's defined is that we take a look at our strategy we take a look at the difference between gaining control as well as sustaining that and where is the emphasis with the personnel in technology with a strate comparison to the way that we've applied it over the years to be able to gain control so i want to talk about strategy in a minute and answering the question for me to call a few minutes ago about the curious the all use airships that all don't believe mr book ascii we don't although we have spoken to folks represent that put in kind of our menu of options but we don't currently use them you know early on we saw that we're going to hear problems with the cameras on poles i know you'll have a fancier one for me that's what they are and it just seems like that this is an asset that we ought to be incorporating because it does allow you to see over into the to mexico and see what gathering and  have a pretty good need for more side as well so i'd be interested in your thoughts about that at some other time may have to come by and visit visit with me i also heard mr mccall talk about the fact that the seven hundred miles  fencing that was authorized in appropriated which only half of its pedestrian fencing has been pretty much complete is that accurate yes how much more do you need a pedestrian fencing and much more request is taking a look at the requirements based on what we know the projections for f b i going back and revisiting the personnel technology and infrastructure piece because one of the things i want to be able to do is we have basically one operational almost two operational cycles if you are two fence what that vehicle barrett has done with respect to our ability to achieve those levels of operational control and where has the traffic gone in some of those areas when you expect to have that assessment probably strategy is what i'm after i have been in discussions with both the c b p leadership in the department leadership about requirements about you know strategy and what we're doing with respect to the threat i don't know how much of that was part of those specific items that you had scenario and you said you didn't have one it just really seems to me that that is a part of your plan that you can all to have an idea of when you're going to achieve certain milestones and objectives best case and worst case i mean it e equipment that's already deployed if the secretary finds we're not like continue with with s p i now what's what's the plan for that well under the nature of a contract  the hardware that's already built because it's a cost reimbursable contract if we shut everything down we own it and then the question for us is do we continue to operate or not now go into sun one where we have turned this over since the birth of the border patrol water waiting to do the testing we are getting value out of it so my anticipation would be we'd operated to whatever level it's affected the question as i suggested earlier is how effective is it but it is somewhat effective so i don't think although we haven't  think it's likely we just rip it all apart and not use it i suspect we would use what we've got but we wouldn't build any more that would be the issue would would you then integrate it with other technologies that you are assessing now or what are you assessing now actually all right the immediate question for the assessment is do we need to rethink the basic technology strategy which was let's deploy  some incarnation along the whole border and that'll be the meat of our technology investment and the question is is that really the right technology in the right places or are there better mixes and matches including things like really weren't in that trait so the assessment is should we rethink that baseline was that really the right way to define the technology contribution to border security or can we come up with something that's a little bit more rational that is tailored each area of the border and some of those might be things like s b i net but some of them might be a couple of mobile surveillance systems a camera tower u a b a blimp ok so that's the plan now that that's going to take a little while the frame that for the whole border which is why i think we're all frustrated because you'd like me to have that today and frankly i can't tell you i do so that's what we're talking about assessing my expectation is that we would not end up with espionage along the border already that doesn't look like a wise thing to do maybe make some sense we don't know yet it may make some sense in some places so that's the plan in terms of integrating a longer term question because if i have you a visa mobile surveillance systems and so forth the question would be is there utility in taking all of that information sending it to one place and doing something like data using it very expensive but it has benefit so that would be a vision for the future the first question is get technology there in the first place the second question is can i do surveillance with this technology by now and that's we're down to fifty three are we're at fifty three miles roughly that leaves a big gap i mean that some of that technology was supposed to account for resources and with respect to the taxpayer dollars how do we then for those resources in the appropriate way to be able to achieve the stated objective of the most cost effective way of doing that and that's that's what i'm charged with and we cannot wait for your answer frankly how much input do you have as word patrol into it boeing is doing now i don't work directly with boeing personally myself i do absolutely matter of fact  to the congress to not be able to get a fair answer from a commanding general as to what they need in wartime so that we can provide it for that bag up say the us we need to know  need more no matter what the secretary won't say what the president won't if you feel like you need more agents you need to tell the people in this committee so we can get them for you so i asked when you say you have got your assessment yet do you not want to tell us or do you really not know if you need more people or not i can tell you sir my response to your earlier question identifying the requirement to under our operational definitions to achieve effect of operational control is not a numerical equivalent of one hundred thousand or twenty five thousand not in even if the threat remained the same which it doesn't by the way and all things are being equal with respect to the terrain along the southwest border which it is in the northern border is trying to figure out what is that right combination i mean and sometimes i even get frustrated with my staff when they say we'll keep it depends it depends on the right combination of personnel technology and infrastructure and what's interesting is now that we started over the last few years receiving that we're starting to see the benefits of that and so i think we're in a better position over the next year and the following year to assess what that combination is that's why i was mentioning earlier in some of those areas where we have a d by our tactical definition effect of operational control now the question is ok what is going to take to sustain that because a thought is within our strategy is going to take more resources and that combination to gain control than it is to sustain it and so we look at those areas and we start developing a sustained strategy what that entails what i'm expecting is that we will be able to redeploy some of those resources into other areas where we're good control so that's why the number may at some point be  but we're using it a lot more flexible manner will be a lot more mobile with our response capabilities because now we do have the situation where it isn't the detection with the technology we have the persistent impedance that the infrastructure gives us and so now we're using our  personnel smarter using our air assets smarter and so we're coming up with a force that were a lot more flexible against those you know that only space what's happening right now with the national guard being sent back down or gives us the impression that staffing may be in spor passes me i had to be agents but you see my point and i would like to know do you have a problem after you complete your assessment giving us your own varnished opinion notwithstanding how the a question i will tell you that as well but you do understand how we would have concerns when we see the national guard having to be mobilized to come out to help all that maybe you need more of your own people and not having to have the national guard oh i understand those point out that the schedule that we discussed three months ago relative to completion of systems acceptance testing for both son and i we have held those schedules and although we're not celebrating there actually have been some milestones over the last four or five months that we have we have not by a lot but by some and i think that's the cumulative result of applying sound management practices to the program some of which were pointed out by the g a o and a lot of rigor that's been brought to the program by mr bork ause and as i said before i've  with a common operating software input for patrol agents in the loop to work interactively with the system and fielded border patrol agents integrating commercial off the shelf into a relatively harsh environment in the southwest border we learned a lot along the way about how individual components which were well characterized in and of themselves combine together in this operation would perform and in many areas we were disappointed you know the committee was in the performance of this total and system and so collectively in partnership with our customer we made decisions about do we deploy the system as is out of the box strung together or do we spend some time to try to improve the performance of the system and therefore delay its systems acceptance testing and eventual handover so these were you will deliberate decisions that we made collectively with our customers to get the system right before we turned it over to the border patrol for their  understood so we decided to take more time and change the goals a little bit to a certain degree change of parameters which was not how it was originally sold and it we know we've had this discussion before and which which becomes an issue that you know where the guardians of the taxpayers money and you know we said yes to this and somebody said yes to this and now we want we want to have sold this book out to going back to t with with vision but you can certainly point folks in the direction to to do that yes in fact we are seriously considering it although that those decisions are actually to be made by folks like chief issue somebody asked earlier about you know do we have a dialogue he's actually the balls he sets what we need and how we use it but yes we've had the small certainly and i know you probably talk with general kostelnik and you know his view and the importance of us and u a b so yes we are seriously considering those very good now a number of my colleagues ask questions and i'll end with this because i actually have to go out on the timetable for your assessments you know we ask questions that have probably should have  a while ago actually and having done the assessments for us so we would like the next thirty days assessments on for example best and worst case scenarios and deployment because we know we actually have to you know and i know maybe there they go hand in hand maybe they're part and parcel of one another but you're in a position to provide us with information and we would love that we would also love your schedule on your testing coming up you know what's going to happen without the dates of the testing what are your parameters for testing you know so we have something to also have a metric to assess by ok you know this is be honest my hat is off to you guys all the time but in the end we have to be the stewards of the taxpayers dollars of the resources that we have available and protect this nation and th threats are increasing rather than decreasing and then tell we do that we cannot consider this homeland security that insists the hearing for the small earnings we will have other questions and  we will smith them in writing and i and please encourage you to give us a prop response we stand