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To: WatchingInAmazement

Ignore the idiot-by-bad-choice of argument styles. You are right on this point.


78 posted on 03/04/2006 3:46:43 PM PST by bvw
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To: bvw


Yes, and the loyal opposition know we're right. Must be quite a predicament for them.

_________________

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2005/Nov/UF-US_Customs.htm

A recent report by a Congressional watchdog agency, the Government Accountability Office, for example, criticizes the quality of CBP’s detection equipment and asserts that staffing imbalances have prevented the agency from inspecting many U.S.-bound shipments.

As a result of this system, CBP officers in Baltimore scan only about 14 to 15 percent of the containers passing through their port, Shannon said. “We wouldn’t want to scan all of the containers on a ship,” he said. “That would be a waste of time.”

Once CSI is implemented in 50 ports, approximately 90 percent of all trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific cargo imported into the United States will be subjected to pre-screening.”



This system—developed under a $9 million, four-year contract awarded in 2003 to SETA Corporation, of McLean, Va.—uses risk-based analysis to decide which containers should not be loaded aboard the vessel at the foreign port, which need to be inspected at either the foreign or the U.S port, and which are low-risk and can shipped without further review.


An April 2005 report by the GAO labeled these efforts as “promising,” but raised concerns about CBP’s “ability to achieve its ultimate goal of improved cargo security.”

Richard Stana, director of GAO’s Homeland Security and Justice Team, told the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that CBP had been unable to target all U.S.-bound shipments from CSI ports because of staffing imbalances. “As a result, 35 percent of these shipments were not targeted [for] overseas inspection,” he said.

In addition, Stana said, CBP has not established minimum technical requirements for the detection capability of inspection equipment used as part of CSI. Participating ports use various types of equipment to inspect containers, and the capabilities of such equipment can vary, he noted.

“Given these conditions, CBP has limited assurance that inspections conducted under CSI are effective at detecting and identifying terrorist weapons of mass destruction,” Stana said.

In response, CBP said it agreed with the GAO’s findings and proposed to reconsider


87 posted on 03/04/2006 5:34:28 PM PST by WatchingInAmazement ("Nothing is more expensive than cheap labor," prof. Vernon Briggs, labor economist Cornell Un.)
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