DHS continues to oppose 100 percent cargo screening.(SECURITY BEAT: HOMELAND DEFENSE BRIEFS)(Department of Homeland Security)(Brief article)

National Defense, January, 2008

Customs and Border Protection is pressing on with congressionally mandated pilot projects that will show if it is feasible to screen every shipping container for nuclear materials before they arrive at U.S. ports.

They will share the results of these operational tests with Congress in April, however, CBP commissioner R. Ralph Basham hopes lawmakers will scrap the idea, which calls for 100 percent screening of sea and air cargo by 2012.

"It is no secret that we in DHS did not favor this approach, since we felt the risk-based strategy ... is both more effective and more operationally feasible," he told the annual CBP Trade Symposium.

CBP has a manifest data mining system that is supposed to designate high-risk containers to be separated out...