Hong Kong has been testing a new surveillance system for cargo. It combines gamma-ray, OCR and radiation scans. It's expensive in both start-up and operational costs, but it scans every container that comes into Hong Kong. And it scans the container quickly. And because it can identify the specific container, discovery of a suspect container does not mean a shutdown of the entire shipping industry.
Our Customs Service has not been very supportive of this new system. The current Customs system checks only suspicious containers, which translates to about 5.4% of the more than 7,000,000 containers that arrive in our ports each year. While the Customs Service has used the system for years and is happy with it, the system can't tell you where a nasty container came from nor is there much communication between ports. That means that if a nasty container is discovered the entire shipping industry could be shut down. The cost in money and terrorist satisfaction of such a shutdown would likely far exceed the cost of a better system.
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