15How do you keep a terrorist from smuggling a radiation-filled "dirty bomb" or other weapon in one of the seven-million-plus shipping containers that arrive at U.S. ports each year? Until now, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has sought to secure global shipping by relying on intelligence and scrutinizing suspicious cargo manifests-such as an unrefrigerated container full of "frozen fish"-to identify potentially dangerous shipments. Currently, less than 6% of the containers headed for American ports are deemed "high risk" by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and pulled aside for examination by Customs inspectors.
Port officials in Hong Kong are testing a strategy that electronically scrutinizes every container full of sneakers, toys, gadgets, or other contents. Trucks haul each container passing through the port through two of the giant scanners. One checks for nuclear radiation, while the other uses gamma rays to seek out any dense, suspicious object made of steel or lead inside the containers that could shield a bomb from the nuclear detector. Proponents contend it better secures the global shipping system without unacceptably slowing the flow of commerce. The Hong Kong project would cost shippers an additional $6.50 a container if its costs were passed on to them. That is a fraction of what it currently costs to transport a container: about $1,900 to send a 20-foot container from Hong Kong to Los Angeles.
U.S. Customs and Border protection is examining the various options for inspecting the incoming cargo, including a 100% inspection. Clearly, one of the main issues to address is how to minimize the obvious congestion that would result at the ports and borders. This will undoubtedly add a huge burden to the U.S. economy, not to mention the cost of in-stalling the scanners all over the border entry points. What would you recommend?