Border control

I recently heard about Boeing's contract with Homeland Security to build a virtual fence on the US - Mexico border. They were comissioned in 2006 and were to complete a full >1200 mile stretch near 2008-2009, but less than 28 miles are completed. Almost a billion dollars have been spent. I am learning about this from a recent 60 minutes podcast about the topic.

As far as problems, the system uses radar to identify motion, but radar has issues when it rains. Maybe rain is not common on the border, but terrorists planning on using this border will likely make their way during a storm given this information.

Remote tracking was to happen through remote laptop control, but the dry-sandy conditions were causing problems for intended laptops, because the parts were almost off-the-shelf and not military grade.

On top of that, it is reported that the users of the intended system were not consulted for their needs and requirements.

This looks like a classic problem of porting a lab tested project to a real world environment. Not enough design work was done in planing and anticipating rials to the system.