Posted on 07/17/2012 6:47:50 AM PDT by upchuck
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.
In response to the 9/11 Commission, Congress passed a law in 2007 specifying that no cargo container may enter the United States before being scanned with imaging equipment and a radiation-detection device.
The administration’s failure to meet the deadline has left some members of Congress and outside experts concerned about whether the threat is being taken seriously enough.
“I personally do not believe they intend to comply with the law,” Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), co-author of the 2007 law, said in an interview. “This is a real terrorist threat, and it has a solution. We can’t afford to wait until a catastrophic attack.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The law was passed in 2007. Five years later, DHS is still screwing around. I wonder by what authority Sis extended the exemption?
They have no problem scanning me at an airport and being very invasive about it. So what gives here?
Combine this with his muzzie buddies camping out in the WH and closing border patrol offices and what have you got? Mmmmmm mmmmm.
That much money for 700 units of something? What does she need, full radar units that are put into carriers, plus all the dishes?
In a just country, she’d be thrown into jail and forgotten about.
our government is an Idiocracy
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