Watson Coleman: “Container scanning technology is improving, but it is not able to perform useful, speedy inspections of cargo on the…”

“Container scanning technology is improving, but it is not able to perform useful, speedy inspections of cargo on the scale House Democrats envision. Congress has already authorized pilot programs to study the feasibility of scanning all maritime cargo. That is what we have done. I offered that amendment last year. As a result, the Department of Homeland Security is putting in place a pilot that will scan all U.S.-bound containers at three ports by July of this year. They are the Port Qasim in Pakistan, which is ready for testing now; Port Cortez in Honduras, which is ready for testing now; and Southhampton in the United Kingdom, which will be ready in July. So the reality is what we are doing in Congress is acting in a rational manner, understanding the needs to go forward as aggressively as possible but not fearing demagoguery and telling the public we are turning a blind eye to 95 percent of the cargo containers that are there. The idea of 100-percent scanning comes from a system we saw in Hong Kong, a system I asked the Senator from New York to look at. I believe he did.”