DHS is slated for failing to meet 100pc sea freight screening deadline

THE US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been slammed for continuing to push back the deadline to scan 100 per cent of US-bound sea freight, arriving from foreign ports, by a further two years to 2014.

On the third anniversary of the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (Public Law 110-53), the DHS plan was slated for failing to meet the sea cargo scanning requirement that is intended to detect terrorist weapons hidden onboard US-bound vessels, reports Home Security Today.

"When Congress approved the 100 per cent scanning mandate, the potential loss of life and economic disruption that would result from the detonation of a dirty bomb at a busy US port was foremost in our minds," said Republican Bennie Thompson, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, in a statement.

"Three years later, the agency charged with implementing this important security provision has made no measurable progress. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security has expended its resources on campaigning against the 100 per cent scanning mandate, a vital provision of the 9/11 Act that then-President (George W) Bush signed into law," he added.

Mr Thompson along with two other congressmen wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to slam the department's continued push to extend or override the 2012 statutory deadline for 100 per cent scanning of cargo containers leaving foreign ports for the United States.

"Rather, it is our understanding that DHS is seeking to extend the deadline by two years for all ports worldwide without developing a plan to implement the scanning requirement by a date certain pursuant to the statute," the lawmakers wrote.

To date, CBP estimates that it is scanning only five per cent of US-bound sea freight.
(Source:www.schednet.com)