To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. SBI COMES NORTH to begin deploying surveillance equipment, Retired Air Force Col. Mark Borkowski, SBI executive director, told Homeland Security Today. Deployment of actual sensor capabilities in the area around Buffalo, NY, will begin in early May, according to Borkowski. “Now, there are other places where we are going to put hardware—around Detroit [Mich.],” Borkowski noted. “There are some existing systems that we are buying. We don’t buy them from Boeing, but they are systems that we buy for the southwest border called mobile surveillance systems. We are buying a couple of those for the area around Swanton [Vt.]. Those will also be available and deployed in the spring.” DHS will bring together and integrate additional resources from across the department in addition to local, state and international capabilities. “For example, on the Great Lakes, you have the Coast Guard and the Customs and Border Protection assets that include Air and Marine, Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations,” he said. “How do you link those to intel capabilities that the department is building to get effective control of the border? That’s a much broader, more comprehensive team effort that builds that kind of capability along the northern border. So we see the northern border as an opportunity to leverage the ability to integrate these elements that are there with strong capabilities.” Integration of those activities creates a force multiplier to exponentially increase the capabilities of their resources. The goal of SBI then is to advise integration activities on their technology options. Officials must learn quickly from their experiences with the SBI-Network (SBInet) program to adapt technologies to the northern border. “For example, let’s put up those sensor systems that are along the southwest border and see how well they do in the different environment in the north,” Borkowski explained. “Let’s use that to help determine and define what we need going forward. Maybe more significantly, can I through SBInet begin to demonstrate command and control and sensor fusion and sensor integration and actual operational integration among the various entities that are at play?” The actual threats along the southern and northern borders are fairly similar: interdict terrorists and contraband. The technology along the southern border, however, must assist with sifting through large masses of people attempting to enter the United States between ports of entry and help to separate potential terrorists from economic migrants, while migrants crossing the northern border usually do so at the ports of entry. And those that do cross between ports of entry often do so for what they perceive as legitimate reasons. “On the southwest border, it’s a mass of people. On the northern border, someone comes between the ports of entry because that’s the community. On the northern border, there are communities where they are used to coming and going across the border; they have been doing that for years. How do you defend the border without cutting off that normal commerce? But there are other parts of the northern border where, if someone is coming between the ports of entry, you must be very suspicious of what they are doing,” he stated. DHS also must adjust its sensor technology from detecting people in the southwest environment with low scrubby foliage to a northern environment with hills, rocks and trees. Air and marine 34 April 2009 | www.HSToday.us This month’s issue is now available online at…