May 24, 2004
U.S. Nearing Deal on Way to Track Foreign Visitors
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JOHN MARKOFF
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/24/politics/24VISI.html?th
THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON, May 22 - The Department of Homeland Security is on the verge of
awarding the biggest contract in its young history for an elaborate system
that could cost as much as $15 billion and employ a network of databases to
track visitors to the United States long before they arrive.
The contract, which will probably be awarded in coming days to one of three
final bidders, is already generating considerable interest as federal
officials try to improve significantly their ability to monitor those who
enter at more than 300 border-crossing checkpoints by land, sea and air,
where they are going and whether they pose a terrorist threat.
But with that interest have come questions - both logistical and
philosophical - from Congressional investigators and outside experts. Will a
company based outside the United States, in Bermuda, get the megacontract?
How much will it end up costing? What about the privacy concerns of foreign
visitors? And most critical, for all the high-end concepts and higher
expectations, can the system really work?
Interviews with government officials, experts and the three companies vying
for the contract - Accenture, Computer Sciences and Lockheed Martin - reveal
new details and potential complications about a project that all agree is
daunting in its complexity, cost and national security importance.
The program, known as US-Visit and rooted partly in a Pentagon concept
developed after the terrorist attacks of 2001, seeks to supplant the
nation's physical borders with what officials call virtual borders. Such
borders employ networks of computer databases and biometric sensors for
identification at sites abroad where people seek visas to the United States.
With a virtual border in place, the actual border guard will become the last
point of defense, rather than the first, because each visitor will have
already been screened using a global web of databases.
Visitors arriving at checkpoints, including those at the Mexican and
Canadian borders, will face "real-time identification" - instantaneous
authentication to confirm that they are who they say they are. American
officials will, at least in theory, be able to track them inside the United
States and determine if they leave the country on time.
Officials say they will be able, for instance, to determine whether a
visitor who overstays a visa has come in contact with the police, but
privacy advocates say they worry that the new system could give the federal
government far broader power to monitor the whereabouts of visitors by
tapping into credit card information or similar databases. The system would
tie together about 20 federal databases with information on the more than
300 million foreign visitors each year.
The bidders agree that the Department of Homeland Security has given them
unusually wide latitude in determining the best strategy for securing
American borders without unduly encumbering tourism and commerce.
Whoever wins the contract will be asked to develop a standard for
identifying visitors using a variety of possible tools - from photographs
and fingerprints, already used at some airports on a limited basis since
January, to techniques like iris scanning, facial recognition and
radio-frequency chips for reading passports or identifying vehicles.
"Each of these technologies have strengths and weaknesses," Paul Cofoni,
president of Computer Sciences' federal sector, said of the biometric
alternatives. "I don't know that any one will be used exclusively."
Virtual borders is a high-concept plan, building on ideas that have been
tried since the terrorist attacks of 2001.
But homeland security officials say making the system work on a practical
level is integral to protecting the United States from terrorist attacks in
the decades to come. "This is hugely important for the security of our
country and for the wise use of our limited resources," Asa Hutchinson,
under secretary for border security, said in an interview. "We're talking
here about a comprehensive approach to border security."
But the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress,
concluded in a report in September that "the program is a very risky
endeavor," given its enormous scope and complexity. "The missed entry of one
person who poses a threat to the United States could have severe
consequences," the report said.
An update issued by the accounting office earlier this month found that
while homeland security officials had made some headway in meeting
investigators' concerns about management and oversight problems, the
progress "has been slow." The update said major questions remained about the
project's cost and viability. "I don't think there's any less concern
today," Randolph Hite, who wrote the reports, said in an interview.
"This program is going to get more and more complex as time goes on, and you
can't count on human heroes bailing you out to ensure that the system
works," Mr. Hite said. With the program to be phased in over a decade, he
said, "the question you have to ask is: What value are we getting for these
initial increments, and is it worth it?"
Indeed, the costs are enormous, and Congressional investigators said they
did not believe officials had a clear handle on the financing. The bid
request set a maximum of $10 billion, but the accounting office found that
some of the cost estimates were outdated and the final price tag - when
financing from agencies like the State Department is considered - could
reach $15 billion by 2014.
The idea of virtual borders originated in 2002 with a group of researchers
at the National Defense University's Center for Technology and National
Security Policy. The group, led by Hans Binnendijk, the center's director,
was trying to find new ways to secure the nation's shipping containers.
"We got interested in this soon after 9/11 as a fairly obvious problem," he
said.
The group wrote an article discussing the need to inspect cargo long before
it arrived in United States harbors. They then briefed a range of government
agencies.
The virtual border is similar to the idea of an air traffic control center,
officials note. In this case, the system would allow homeland security
officials to monitor travel on a national level, shifting resources and
responding as necessary.
The air traffic control analogy is significant in part because Computer
Sciences and Lockheed Martin have traditionally been the nation's two
largest contractors for the Federal Aviation Agency in the development and
maintenance of the nation's air traffic control system.
The air traffic control parallel worries some executives. More than $500
million and 15 years were squandered on the effort to modernize the nation's
aging air traffic system beginning in the late 1980's and a prime contractor
was I.B.M.'s Federal Systems Division, now part of Lockheed Martin.
Another problem the system faces is the potential inability to get access to
all needed data from foreign countries and from the United States' own
intelligence community. Experts agree that no matter how good the
technology, the system will rely on timely and accurate information about
the histories and profiles of those entering the country to detect possible
terrorists. It will have no direct impact on illegal immigrants.
The system will lead to a broad interconnection of federal databases,
ranging from intelligence to law enforcement as well as routine commercial
data.
Officials say they will work to ensure that the privacy of foreigners is
protected and that the system will not be used to profile travelers, but
civil libertarians say they are nonetheless alarmed that databases could be
used to monitor both foreign visitors and American citizens, and they have
already challenged it in court.
Yet another issue irking some lawmakers is the fact that Accenture is
incorporated in Bermuda.
"I don't want to see the Department of Homeland Security outsourcing its
business to a Bermudan company," said Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas
Democrat who has pushed to close a loophole allowing foreign bidders on
federal contracts.
Federal officials say they are satisfied that Accenture, which has about
25,000 employees in the United States and less than a dozen in Bermuda,
meets the definition of a United States company and is eligible for the
contract.
Accenture, for its part, sees the issue as irrelevant.
Jim McAvoy, an Accenture spokesman, said, "The real question is: Should the
federal government be forced to select an inferior bid because the bidder is
incorporated in the U.S.?"

************************************************************************************
Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion
list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic
study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please visit:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html
*************************************************************************************