Port Security Assurance Brings Skepticism

[shawn703]

Assurances that the government is taking steps to tighten port security against terrorist threats brought skeptical comments from lawmakers Thursday.

"The administration has failed on port security," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., at a hearing of the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations.

"These gaps in security may well be too wide to ignore," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, referring to low participation in two Customs and Border Protection programs that were criticized in recent Government Accountability Office reports.

The programs are the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), which allows importers to get quicker clearance through customs in exchange for voluntary security measures, and the Container Security Initiative (CSI), which posts U.S. customs inspectors in 36 foreign ports to look for suspicious cargo.


more...
http://www.heraldsun.com/nationworld/washington/15-610890.html

[maddezmom]

1. please check your link

not working for me. Thanks. :)

[shawn703]

2. Fixed! n/t

[TomInTib]

3. Wanna know the truth?

I was on a plane out of San Francisco a few weeks ago and struck up a conversation with this extremely conservative-looking buttoned-down kind of guy.
Turns out he has a company that makes the most powerful cargo container scanner in the business.
So I said something along the line of "you guys must be kicking butt what with all this focus on Port Security".
Then he told me that all of their business was overseas.
They had wangled a meeting with Good Old Homeland Security a few weeks earlier and figured this was their home run pitch. Only to be told, "Look, you guys aren't getting it. Security is not the issue, the thing is to keep the public aware of the threat as inexpensively as possible".
He was dumbfounded and completely outraged.
Our conversation got really interesting after that but I am far too slow on the keyboard to go on.

[Demit]

4. Wow. Rest your fingers and come back with the rest! That must've been

a fascinating conversation.

And welcome to DU!

[TahitiNut]

5. "...the thing is to keep the public aware of the threat ..."

Yes, it's called "marketing." (Or "propaganda.") In the conglomerate model of global corporatism, one wholly-owned subsidiary does the production operations and another does the marketing. Cost containment is part and parcel of profit maximization.