More testing of container screening system is planned

The Homeland Security Department will do more testing on an advanced container-scanning system at the Port of Hong Kong, despite industry and lawmaker concerns that the department is moving too slowly to improve maritime security.

The department's Customs and Border Protection agency is set to begin a new round of operational testing on the integrated container inspection system, which is installed at two terminals at the port, said Jayson Ahern, CBP's assistant commissioner for field operations.

Under the system, which was created as a test program and funded by industry, all cargo containers are scanned by a radiation detector and gamma-ray imaging system. Electronic records of every scan are created and can be reviewed by customs inspectors.

Supporters said the system, built by Science Applications International Corp., represents a breakthrough in technology that would let every container be scanned at foreign ports without hurting trade.

The department has been analyzing the system since it was started in late 2004 but still has yet to give any indication about how -- or even if -- the technology will be integrated into maritime security efforts, said Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on port and cargo security.

Flynn, who was a paid consultant to help establish the system until last summer, said he fears that industry will not continue to operate the system without a commitment from the U.S. government that it has a future. "There's a fatigue factor setting in here," Flynn said.

Lawmakers have been hotly divided on the issue of whether all containers can be scanned at foreign ports. Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee rejected a proposal from Democrats last week to require such scanning within three years, arguing that technology does not exist to do it.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will debate its maritime security bill Tuesday. "What I would like to see is 100 percent screening abroad for radiological or nuclear signals," committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a recent interview.

Testing results of the Hong Kong system could give Democrats new ammunition against Republicans. The system does 2,000 scans per day and has generated more than 1 million images to date, SAIC said.

Ahern said the system has "great potential," but CBP needs to evaluate how it could realistically be used in an operational environment.

"We need to work out the details of the concept," he said. "It's not a matter of just putting a device in a port. ... You have to take a look at operational throughput capacity. You have to take a look at host country relationships and how they're going to resolve some of the alarms. And we're going to take a look at what our authorities would be overseas."

He said the "logical next step" is to have CBP personnel visit the Port of Hong Kong again for testing purposes but added that a timeline for doing that has not been determined.