[js1138]

... believe that Al-Qiada has already planted at least one nuclear device, possible a nuclear bomb, in a US city...

This of course, can't be disproved. But any nuke or dirty bomb material will be hot to a number of detectors. It would take an impractical amount of lead shielding to prevent detection, and even that would emit secondary radiation. Major cities are continually scoured. People have been pulled over after taking radioactive cocktails for medical diagnosis.

Transporting any large amount of radioactive material is like carrying a lighted flair in the middle of the night.

Some FReeper might recall last year a ship was stopped for carrying glazed floor tiles. Some glaze pigments are mildly radioactive. A Russian plane was quarantined because one of its passengers was apparently undergoing medical treatment.

[Letitring]

I remember that. I was thinking of the ship 'an tile episode, the other day. Thanks.

[Domestic Church]

Think tugboats just coasting near the wharfs with some police or fire fighter uniformed men aboard...think they might pass by? Or a routine bluefish boat going into Sheepshead?

[Sean Osborne Lomax]

Yes, I remember. It was the SS Palermo Senator. The ship actually made it into the NY/NJ port area and that's when radiological detectors went off. It was haul-assed back out to the open ocean while a nuke quick reaction team searched the ship.

By the way.... for anybody living near the coast, keep your eyes peeled for helicopters with a tethered device of some type (ie: a helo with a long rope and a funnny shaped object attacked to it). I suspect this is a new method of scanning ships that are on an approach to our coasts and ports. They may be scanned in this manner while they are still some distance out at sea. Just a hunch I have. Nothing concrete.