depleted uranium slips through

[pippin]

" For a second year, U.S. government screeners have failed to detect a shipment of depleted uranium in a container sent by ABCNEWS from overseas as part of a test of security at American ports. . . homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has claimed major improvements in port security, in part because of enhanced vigilance overseas. "So that our borders become the last line of defense, not our first line of defense," Ridge said in a speech last week. He said the United States was increasing security "thousands of miles away, long before a container is first loaded on a ship. . . .But in Jakarta, ABCNEWS producers David Scott and Rhonda Schwartz found that the chest in which they had placed the depleted uranium was never opened or inspected before being sent on to Los Angeles. "
<snip>
If they can't detect that, then they can't detect the real thing," explained Tom Cochran, a nuclear physicist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which lent the material to ABCNEWS for the project.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/Primetime/sept11_uranium030910.html"

so much for security and the "war on terror."

Goodbye Tom Ridge. :hi:

[reprobate]

1. This is big. The media is turning on the junta.

This is the first time I'm aware of the media actively seeking to prove the cabal not only wrong, but actually lieing about security.

May they live long and prosper.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

2. It's been an interesting couple of weeks as far as the mainstream media...

...is concerned. They've been printing all kinds of negative articles about the policies of the Bushies and televising video of some pretty vocal protests against Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld. Dan Rather has also started referring to GWB as "Mr. Bush", something the media does not do unless it's clear that the occupant of the White House is in pretty bad trouble. I can remember it being done to Nixon, Bush I, Clinton, and now Junior.

And to top it off, factions within the military and intelligence agencies have been leaking information to the media, information that is highly damaging to the Bushies, AND it's being reported!

[Nottingham]

3. Its all a Joke! What Security?

Homeland Security and FBI and CIA are doing Nothing!!!

[Another Bill C.]

4. The fallacy in it

I think the fallacy lies not in the fact that depleted uranium got through the system but in propagating the belief that the system can be made safe.

When I'm in line at the airport, I can imagine at least a dozen ways to make weapons from or hide weapons in the carry-on luggage of my fellow passengers.

If carry-on luggage were to be banned, more exotic weapons could be integrated into clothing.

You can be someone's enemy or you can be safe but you can't be both at the same time.