US Looks to Scan All Cargo on Ships

I read yesterday in the Financial Times a story that must be scaring the beejeezus out of shippers:

All cargo going into the US on ships would have to undergo thorough screening at foreign ports under new legislation agreed by key congressional committees, in a move attacked yesterday by the shipping industry as a recipe for chaos.

Notice, this isn't scanning ships in US ports - it's scanning the cargo in foreign ports as it gets loaded on. And if Congress passes this legislation, just how do they expect to make it stick with the foreign governments running those ports? I suppose that they would have to if they wanted the products to leave the country, but has our government talked to any other about this? I highly doubt it. And that opening paragraph from the story doesn't mention that all air freight would also have to be scanned.

Someone from the National Retail Federation brought up what I thought was an excellent question: does the Department of Homeland Security have the wherewithal to go through the literally millions of images that would come flooding back? Think about it - they'd have to review the images in real time to stop a container from being loaded onto a ship or plane.

This sounds like another feel-good piece of legislation where people haven't considered what they're actually requesting. And it's another example of how people desperately want to think that they can have complete safety and security. Someone should point out to them that this has never existed and never will. No one can completely eliminate risk, and to think that you can is self-deceptive.