Bomb smugglers: border security woes

Reason, July, 2006 by Tim Cavanaugh

ACCORDING TO the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Department of Homeland Security has fallen far behind in its effort to install portal monitors and handheld radiation detection equipment at points of entry into the United States. That's too bad, because in a recent spot check of radiation-detection equipment at the Canadian and Mexican borders, the machines were the only things that seemed to work.

GAO investigators created fake Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) documents to purchase radioactive materials from commercial suppliers, then attempted to bring in enough material to build two dirty bombs. Equipment at both borders detected the radioactive material, and Customs and Border Patrol agents waved the GAO inspectors aside for further inspection. In both cases, the agents were allowed to bring their radioactive materials into the United States.

The GAO makes several recommendations, among them that suppliers of radioactive materials be required to do more due diligence, that the NRC counterfeit-proof its documents, and that the Border Patrol be given better tools for verifying paperwork. But the striking part of the report is that even in the absence of these reforms, border agents apparently pay only slightly more attention to gamma ray-emitting materials than they would to your "J'[heart] Montreal" t-shirt or stack of Tijuana bibles. The good news is that the Border Patrol's machines are working fine. The bad news is that its people are working like machines.