Undercover investigators slipped a radioactive substance – enough, they say, to make two dirty bombs – across northern and southern U.S. borders last year in a test of security at American ports of entry.
Radiation detection equipment at the unidentified sites went off, but the investigators were permitted to enter the United States after using counterfeit documents to deceive customs agents.
To test security at U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada, GAO investigators represented themselves as employees of a fake company. They presented counterfeit shipping papers and NRC documents that allegedly permitted them to receive, acquire, possess and transfer radioactive substances.
Investigators found that customs agents weren’t able to check whether a person caught with radioactive materials was permitted to possess the materials under a government-issued license.
Kind of gives you that nice secure feeling, doesn’t it?
Now, if the GAO investigators were doing something suspicious — like hiding copies of the Bill of Rights in their armpits — that would have raised the alarm, right away!
Reminds me of a story from work. I work in fairly secure government building. My boss wanted to borrow my chainsaw, so I brought it into work.
The security guard looked at it and jokingly said, “Well, I dont see chainsaws on the list, so I guess it can come in.”
So the billions being spent are failing to ‘secure our borders’ then. Great.
im surprized that others are surprized by this… tons of coke and weed are coming up from mexico every day.. every hour .. every minute… thugs have taken over vast stretches of the mexican border … in all those shipments of dope and ppl and who knows what else you cant tell me materials for any kind of bomb cant be brought in…. you know.. where are the old texas rangers in all of this… they use to stretch from california arizona through texas and around the mexican northern border.. you never even hear them mentioned anymore… its time to go old school on some of this shite and clean it the hell up. just a thought
So we are stuck in Iraq in an unnecessary war, our deficit is balloning and our borders & ports are not safe. What exactly has this administration been doing since 9/11? Have they done one thing right?
Just goes to show that border controls don’t work unless you close the border entirely as in the case of East Germany but that leads to mass revolt. Hay ho.
“Now you see what happens when we let BORDER security in the hands of AMERICANS. If the BORDER was run by DUBAI, this never would have happened.”
Swap the word BORDER with PORT, and switch AMERICANS with DUBAI and see the irony.
The way you define a country is by its BORDERS, its language, and its culture. Bush has always supported open borders and now everyone can see the wisdom of such a policy. We all needed to take this type of concern into account when the issue of immigration reform comes up like it has now. We need to support the securing of the borders immediately even it means walling the border with Mexico.
I don’t think too many people read the actual article. They were stopped by the Border Patrol in both cases. The radiation sensors picked up the material. The issue is that they managed to convince the Agents that it was legal because they flashed phony documentation ostentatiously authorizing them to import the material. Because the Customs Agents could not disqualify the validity of the documents they allowed the “smugglers” and their radioactive material through. There was no way to check that the government had even issued any authorization for the possession of the material. Don’t blame the Customs Agents, they did their job to the best they could with the tools given.
Great picture, kind of reminds me of my first wife and her brother.
and, I also read that the border checkpoints will now be given access to the fed files showing who has authorization to transport the materials.
Pretty quick response I would say. This is what the GAO does(one of many things), it tests things like this to find flaws or problems so they can be corrected.
The funniest part about this is that 6 years ago no one would have cared. Some guy who has been lieing for 8 years says, “Oh no, it really is really important right now. Really.” And everyone gets all uppity about it. Seriously folks, if these horrible terrorists were planning a second attack… what, 4 years isn’t long enough? I have to say, if nothing else the war in Iraq has kept all the terrorists busy as hell.
SN, good example of The Word. People (the masses–not the Ones above them) are incredibly obedient to the Law, and rules. Yesterday, I walked into a Home Depot with a single slat of an old, dirty venetion blind to use it as a width measure for a new one. The front security officer stopped me and took two minutes to write out a pass describing the item being brought into the store so that it could be brought back out without a receipt proving it belonged to me. He was a nice guy, but one without a lot of common sense.