Want to know how to build a virtual fence? ask border patrol.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: SECURITY BEAT: HOMELAND DEFENSE BRIEFS

Designers of the Project 28 pilot program, which was envisioned as a virtual fence along the Southwest border, failed to ask users what they wanted in the system, according to the Government Accountability Office.

After an eight-month delay, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems turned the system over to Customs and Border Protection and the Border Patrol in February.

In late 2006, the Department of Homeland Security awarded Boeing a $20.6 million contract to set up a series of cameras mounted on towers, unattended ground sensors and a common operating picture that would be transmitted to Border Patrol headquarters and agents in their vehicles. The project is part of the Secure Border initiative.

"Both SBInet and Border Patrol officials reported that Project 28 was initially designed and developed by Boeing with limited input from the Border Patrol," said a GAO report looking at lessons learned.

One example is the styluses agents were given to call up information on the screens mounted inside their vehicles. Touch-screen technology would have been better since agents don't want to handle a stylus as they drive down roads in pursuit of smugglers and illegal migrants.

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Nevertheless, the technology is better than what they had before, agents told GAO.

Another takeaway lesson from the project, one that the Defense Department has learned during the past few years, but had escaped DHS, is that the terms "commercial off the shelf" and "plug and play" look good on paper, but integrating sensors and software systems is seldom easy.

Assistant CBP Commissioner Jay...