Port security: U.S. fails to meet deadline for scanning of cargo containers

[alp227]

Source: Washington Post

The Obama administration has failed to meet a legal deadline for scanning all shipping containers for radioactive material before they reach the United States, a requirement aimed at strengthening maritime security and preventing terrorists from smuggling a nuclear device into any of the nation’s 300 sea and river ports.

The Department of Homeland Security was given until this month to ensure that 100 percent of inbound shipping containers are screened at foreign ports.

But the department’s secretary, Janet Napolitano, informed Congress in May that she was extending a two-year blanket exemption to foreign ports because the screening is proving too costly and cumbersome. She said it would cost $16 billion to implement scanning measures at the nearly 700 ports worldwide that ship to the United States.

Instead, the DHS relies on intelligence-gathering and analysis to identify “high-risk” containers, which are checked before being loaded onto ships. Under this system, fewer than half a percent of the roughly 10 million containers arriving at U.S. ports last year were scanned before departure. The DHS says that those checks turned up narcotics and other contraband but that there have been no public reports of smuggled nuclear material.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/port-security-us-fails-to-meet-deadline-for-scanning-of-cargo-containers/2012/07/15/gJQAmgW8mW_singlePage.html

[robinlynne]

1. Well I think we need a huge import tax on imported goods to cover all the costs of security and to

pay for unemployment ......

[hourglass1]

2. "we're broke!" ... boehner

there's only so much tax cuts to the richest and cutbacks in food stamps, medicare, and social security can do to support a global military empire ...

it should be clear that homeland security is a false as the wars on terror and on drugs ...

follow the money ...

[truth2power]

3. "costly and cumbersome". What a friggin' joke! ...

This would be the first time the cost or the inconvenience involved in protecting Americans from terrorists was of any consequence.

My guess is that Ms. Napolitano knows where the real terrorists are, and they're not hanging around shipping containers.

[snot]

4. Intelligence! Ah, yes;

I remember when we used to use intelligence, instead of indiscriminate mass surveillance . . . . as I recall, it prevented the first attack on the World Trade Center.