I’m a nuts and bolts kind of guy. I like practical solutions that actually work in the real world. As a result, I agree with most experts in the field who believe that the benefit of 100% physical cargo inspection is negligible, and that a data-centric approach would be far more effective.

It seems odd to me that the Donks will spend billions on marginally effective anti-terrorism strategies while simultaneously undermining efforts to gather intelligence on terrorists through surveillance and interrogation.

And in the big picture, one of the reasons terrorism persists is because terrorism works. It’s paradoxical that the West spends billions to prevent terrorism, but rewards the terrorists by ceding them their goals. The Palestinians routinely achieve their goals through terrorism and are rewarded with millions in foreign aid. Yasser Arafat received a Nobel Peace Prize and died a billionaire. Al Qaeda’s terrorism in Spain was rewarded with the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq and the installation of a terrorist-friendly socialist government.

It seems paradoxical to reward terrorism while combatting it. Like yelling at your dog when you find pee on the couch, but giving him a Liv-A-Snap when you catch him in the act.

It seems to me that since the Dems are in control now, it is a combination of easy and fun for Republicans to criticize them and point to them as fools; but they are being criticized for trying to do something about security, at least, as opposed to the Republican plan of doing nothing about it. Criticized by Matt for a four-day work week, but that’s almost twice what they had before when the other team ran the show. Where was the criticism then? My guess is, not on Conservative blogs.

When it comes to goods shipped into the US, there is one way to effectively keep cargo containers from hiding dangerous WMD and one way only, and that’s to have an inspection process here in America that is very robust. We don’t have to check 100% of cargo – there can be algorithms and formulas used for deciding which cargo needs greater inspection, based on a wide variety of factors, of course – but we need to be doing more than we currently are now, sheesh.

Same thing goes for the border! We don’t have to stop each and every illegal from coming over, just more than now…

I think the country would be better off with 435 random citizens in Congress than 435 professional politicians.

In many cases, the crews are more dangerous than the cargo. It would be relatively easy for a terrorist to board a ship with forged identity papers and jump the ship in a US port. Cargo inspections do nothing about that scenario.

I just have a general opposition to waste and foolishness

And we should call ‘em an Obstructionists too for thwarting the 9-11 Commission –maybe we could have the 9-11 Democrat Widows’ Club put down the tea sandwiches, slap on the public grief facepaint again and rail against the GOP in order to get “Port Security” finally put into place. Anything to be able to keep the public centered on their sell-able grief –even if its being a tool of House Democrats.

Damn it, if it was so frickin easy, the 109th would have done it already. The House Democrats are doing some heavy lifting in a light 4 day work week.

I bet if VdaK had his way, he’d have the House Democrats just go home, play ostrich and leave the government to the professionals.

BTW, it’s hard to focus on port security when the Bush Administration is bumping off al Qaeda leaders all over the world. What’s with that? When did the WOT shift back to reality and away from meaningless gestures by political grandstanders?

So, if you were a potential terrorist, wouldn’t you insert your package into a cargo which was inspected by your ‘friends’ at the plant in Pakistan where the beanie babies are made, knowing that the lack of logistical dispcrepancies and other assurances mean your container won’t be searched? Wouldn’t you stick to cargo with no ‘red flags?’

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that our enemies are stupid or unresourceful, for they are neither. Better to plan the other way around.

I understand that 100% efficeincies are impossible to obtain in any endeavor. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make things more secure than they currently are. Your example of buying a garage security system and then leaving all the doors open works the other way, as well; the lesson isn’t that the system for the garage is a bad idea, the lesson is that security has to be improved all around to be effective, and in the case of the US that includes port security.

When the terrorists bring WMD to the US, it’s not going to be through the ports.

Unless they are, that is.

Evidently not if you’re still making lame inaccurate statements like “your attitude that the profits of businesses are more important that the safety of American citizens.”

My case is that 100% cargo inspections do not enhance national security. When the terrorists bring WMD to the US, it’s not going to be through the ports. And it sure the hell isn’t going to come in a container of beanie babies shipped from a controlled port in Hong Kong in a sealed container and unsealed at a shipping center somewhere in the midwest, that’s been tracked from the factory to the port and at every step in between.

Spending billions on port security while neglecting the open borders is like buying a hugely expensive security system for your garage, then leaving your front and back door wide open, and furthermore, going around to bad neighborhoods with fliers giving directions to your house and telling which rooms have the good stuff.

The policy is just an expensive exercise in feelgoodism. There is such a thing called a cost-benefit analysis. Given finite resources, it’s better to spend money on actions that will actually enhance security, as opposed to useless feelgood exercises. But if one thinks, as one evidently does, that no cost is too high for absolute security, one should absolutely support Matt’s plan for double, triple, or quadruple inspections. And anyone who thinks his plan is ridiculous can be smeared as someone who puts the profits of business ahead of the security of citizens.

In general, VtheK seems to have this one right,

Thanks. As I said, I spent a great deal of time studying the port security issue and concluded that it is more cost-effective to track and verify cargo than it is to inspect every container. If you limit inspections to containers that have logistical discrepancies, come from ports of concern, or have other red flags, that is a far more effective approach.

Not only that, taking longer will benefit them as union employees, because they can get time and a half for any overtime needed to inspect those containers.

In general, VtheK seems to have this one right, inspecting every single container seems like a monumental waste of time.

Random inspections of containers, and inspections of anything that is suspicious sounds like it would be more cost effective.

But then airports still pull little old ladies in wheel chairs for extra screeening, which also seems like a monumental waste of time.

Michigan Matt is wrong, all cargo should be quadruple-inspected. It should be inspected at the port of origin, it should be inspected when it enters a port facility, when it leaves a port facility, and when it arrives at its destination. Maybe it should be inspected five or six times. And anyone who opposes the sextuple inspection of all cargo obviously is putting the profits of businesses ahead of the safety of American citizens.

I don’t suppose the “let’s do useless expensive things because they give us an illusion of security” folks have ever heard of a thing called a cost-benefit analysis. Not to mention that every dollar spent on the waste of time of inspecting known cargo shipped from reliable, known foreign parts is a dollar that isn’t spent plugging real holes in our national security, like our wide open borders.

When the terrorists bring WMD into the US, it’s not going to be through the ports. Spending billions on port security while neglecting the borders is like building a hugely expensive alarm system for your garage, then leaving your front and back doors wide open, and furthermore going around in bad neighborhoods leaving out fliers with your address on them telling how much valuable stuff is in your house.

V the K,
Thanks for the detailed explanation on shipping and inspecting. It’s good to hear that current processes make an effort to inspect cargo. My only objection to your discussion is that it means we are essentially trusting individual companies to decide how much to inspect, and when, and for what cause. I revere the power of the free market, but historically companies /corporations do not always see past business considerations, and national security is a bit out of corporate scope. Do we trust that each company is right now doing everything it needs to? If 100% screening is not the answer, then maybe something less is, but I don’t see the harm in applying some type of federal standard. If 100% screening is inefficient or ven harmful, then I would agree that it goes too far. A shame the Republicans didn’t address this a few years ago when they had the majority.

Learn to read.

Why don’t you learn not to be such a jerk? I read what you wrote just fine; I don’t agree with it.

If you think that having foreign inspectors inspect cargo, and having it arrive at America with no guarantee that what it says is inside it, actually is inside it, is allright, then you are not serious about port security, sorry. I am unswayed by both your supposed real-life experience and your attitude that the profits of businesses are more important that the safety of American citizens.

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1) creating an appeal process for people wrongly denied boarding on airplanes;
2) creating a border intelligence fusion program to link natl intell with local law enforcement officials;

You have a problem with these two things?

If you personally were never allowed to board a plane here in America again, you don’t want there to be a process to get your name off of the list?

We also ought to check 200% all the airline cargo… including UPS and FedEx and the 2-3 packages/yr the USPostal Service still transports.

And we ought to check 200% all the train cargo –even the ones that come containerized from the ships. That way we can check containers at least 4 times in those cases. The goal is redunancy to an excess and meaningless gestures to assuage the public… let’s do it grandly. Hell, maybe we can not only sell off port operations to foreign companies, we can move the entire operation to a foreign country and get out of having ports. I think they are ugly. I think they should be waterfront parks. And the same goes for domestic naval bases –ugly. Let’s get rid of all of them and call it “Port Security”.

Meanwhile, let’s continue to ship highly toxic nuclear waste across state lines because the enviro terrorists in nearly every state but Nevada want the waste exported to Nevada. Doesn’t that make sense?

Perhaps McCain or Kennedy will add such a provision in the Senate version. It would almost guarantee Bush would sign it.

On second thought, it probably lack some other things, too. Have you heard about the phony Senate earmark reform bill? The one being crafted by Harry gReid and Mitch McConnell would exempt 95% of earmarks from the transparency requirements.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…

I particularly like the parts of the bill which speak to
1) creating an appeal process for people wrongly denied boarding on airplanes;
2) creating a border intelligence fusion program to link natl intell with local law enforcement officials;
3) a new office of “Infrastructure Protection” –like we don’t have enough offices even now;
4) protecting the civil liberties of privacy of Americans while spying on terrorists (with yet another Office and Board);
5) creating a commission on WMDs and their proliferation; creating an Arab Youth Opportunity Fund; and
6) expanding scholarship opportunities for Muslim and Arab youth in the Middle East, SE Asia and Africa.

Gotta love those Democrats and the MSM hacks who reduce all that “big thinking” and waste to “Improving Port Security”.

Actually, my point was just the opposite. 100% cargo inspection is a bad thing to do, a waste of time and effort, since 99% of cargo is already inspected at the point of origin. Another inspection just adds a layer of useless, expensive bureaucracy.

I write this as someone who spent the better part of 2006 conducting an analysis of Port Security as part of my job.

Learn to read.

I don’t think the inspections are useless or unneccessary. I think that if you are serious about defending the country from attack using WMD, the inspections are neccessary.

Now, the fact that we will be unable to get 100% of the cargo inspected doesn’t mean that it is a bad thing to try to do so. We can work on improving speed and efficiencies as we go along; but it is important to create the mindset that defense is a serious thing.

I a a Democrat who wants to see the borders closed, btw. Neither party is monolithic on this issue. I agree that there is no point in securing ports without doing the same for borders; however, we should be doing both, not neither.

I would like to add that this isn’t just the Dems’ promoting greater port security. If Bush signs the bill, the Republicans carry at least equal weight for its’ passage.