Raytheon bids for border contract

Raytheon bids for border contract
By Jay Fitzgerald
Boston Herald General Economics Reporter
Saturday, May 20, 2006 - Updated: 12:17 AM EST

A vast sensor system being used in Brazil’s Amazon forest could be the high-tech model for a similar “virtual fence” along America’s borders - if Waltham-based Raytheon has its way.

Raytheon is now preparing its official multibillion-dollar bid proposal in response to the U.S. government’s recent call for ideas on how to better monitor the Mexican and Canadian borders to prevent illegal aliens and potential terrorists from sneaking into the country.

Bids are expected on May 30 - and a final contract for the so-called “SBInet” system will be awarded this fall by the Department of Homeland Security.

Raytheon is hoping its past effort to build an electronic monitoring system in Brazil will give it a leg up on competition for the U.S. contract.

Four years ago, Raytheon finished up its $1.4 billion contract to construct Brazil’s “System for the Vigilance of the Amazon,” whose high-tech monitoring devices are intended to catch drug traffickers and people cutting down trees in the 2 million-square-mile region of the Amazon.

The idea is to tie together ground and satellite sensors, planes flying above, mobile radars, and other high-tech gadgets to track people and trucks within the Amazon.
“All of the (information) feeds into one central command system,” said Lynford Morton, a spokesman for Raytheon, a defense contractor that’s increasingly moving into non-military business areas.

In March, four airports in the New York City area gave Raytheon a $100 million contract to build anti-terrorist monitoring systems at the airports.

That contract came after New York officials visited the Amazon, Morton noted.
“It’s (similar) to what we’re doing in Brazil,” said Morton of the U.S.-border system federal officials envision.


jfitz@bostonherald.com