Virtual border fence a $1 billion failure

The Department of Homeland Security is backing off what was to have been a multibillion-dollar effort to build an "invisible fence" that was meant to catch drug and human traffickers with cameras, vibration sensors and other high-tech devices.

Of the projected 2,000-mile impenetrable wall of technology that the project was supposed to supply, only about 53 miles of unreliable monitoring systems were built. And the price tag for that work, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times, was in excess of a cool $1 billion.

Homeland Security is not renewing its contract with Boeing, the main contractor on the project, saying the technology hasn't yet been perfected for the high-quality monitoring that comprehensive guarding of the border requires.

A Government Accountability Office report blamed Homeland Security for not adequately overseeing Boeing's work, concluding that those lapses led to cost overruns and delays.

The $6.7 billion virtual fence project was part of former President George W. Bush's border security plan. Its planned 2,000-mile reach was supposed to supplement about 600 miles of physical fencing along the border.

(Photo of a prototype invisible fence surveillance tower: AP)