The Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Customs and Border Protection faces a number of key challenges in its plans to expand its existing surveillance coverage of the U.S. border, according to DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner.

To meet the ambitious goals of DHS' Secure Border Initiative, a "significant number" of additional remote video systems and supporting infrastructure will likely be needed, Skinner told the House Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on management, integration and oversight Dec. 16.

"We recommend that CBP work closely with the department's science and technology directorate so we can make wise investments," he said. "As we proceed, we need to make sure that the technology out there works." DHS also needs to better define the SBI program, he added.

SBI is envisioned as a five-year, multibillion-dollar program to deploy more personnel, new technologies and better infrastructure on both the northern and southern borders. DHS has said it expects to award contracts for SBI technologies in fiscal 2006 with deployment in fiscal 2007.

Skinner found a number of integration and management problems with CBP's current remote technology surveillance network, known as the Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS). The network includes seismic and magnetic sensors, day/night cameras and an "intelligent" computer-assisted detection system. Since fiscal 1997, ISIS has received more than $429 million in funding.

But the cameras and sensors have not been integrated in such a way that a sensor alert would activate a corresponding camera to pan and tilt in the direction of the triggered sensor, he said. In addition, CBP has not developed performance measures to evaluate the effectiveness of ISIS or its role as a force multiplier, Skinner said.

Skinner recommended that future investments in surveillance technology and upgrades be integrated and that CBP standardize the process for collecting, cataloging, processing and reporting intrusion and response data. CBP concurred with those and other recommendations, Skinner said.