The Gvlshornbook

Testers Slip Radioactive Materials Over Borders - New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 27 — Undercover Congressional investigators successfully smuggled into the United States enough radioactive material to make two dirty bombs, even after it set off alarms on radiation detectors installed at border checkpoints, a new report says.

The test, conducted in December by the Government Accountability Office, demonstrated the mixed progress by the Department of Homeland Security, among other federal agencies, in trying to prevent terrorists from smuggling radioactive material into the United States.

Nationally, at a cost so far of about $286 million, about 60 percent of all containerized commercial goods entering the United States by truck or ship and 77 percent of all private cars are now screened for radioactive material.

But flaws in the inspection procedures and limitations with the equipment mean that nuclear materials may still be able to be sent illegally into the country through seaports or land borders, the study found. And because the program for installing radiation detectors is far behind schedule, many border crossing points, including many seaports, still have no detection equipment, the report says.

“We suffer from a massive blind spot in our cargo security measures,” Senator Norm Coleman, Republican of Minnesota, said in a statement that accompanied the report, which will be released Tuesday morning at a Senate hearing.

In the test case, undercover investigators bought a small amount of radioactive material, most likely cesium. Then on Dec. 15, they drove across the border at undisclosed locations from Canada and Mexico, intentionally picking spots where the detection equipment had been installed.