Their Mission: Intercepting Deadly Cargo
Prior to the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, the U.S. Customs Service concentrated mainly on the imports of illegal drugs, but since then, the renamed Bureau of Customs and Border Protection has put potential terrorist weapons at the top of its list.
The bureau says that between September 2001 and September 2002, 7.2 million shipping containers, 11.1 million trucks, 2.4 million railroad cars, 768,000 commercial airline flights, and 128,000 private flights entered the United States.
Agents use radiation detectors, fiberoptic cameras, vapor tracers, radiation-detection portals, and other devices, as well as dogs, to check cargo entering the country, and federal officials say that new technologies are essential even though they are expensive.
“These systems have given us much more flexibility and have made us more efficient,” says bureau acting director Todd A. Hoffman.
The National Targeting Center uses information about cargo coming into the United States to assess risk. The government is also starting to deploy detection systems overseas to scan cargo containers before they leave for U.S. ports. Radiation-detection portals let vehicles drive right through, while hand-held pagers have become more widespread.
One possible future technology is smart cargo containers that can tell when they were opened and possibly by whom.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from the New York Times (03/20/03) P. E1; Schiesel, Seth.