F’n Scary
Thanks a lot, Reuters. Here I am, brushing up on the day’s headlines while brushing my teeth before bed, and this is the story you give me.
Great.
Perhaps the article title is sensationalized, you know, Geraldo-at-Large style. Maybe it’s not really as bad as it sounds?
If only.
Two teams made simultaneous entries at the U.S.-Mexican border and the border with Canada carrying radioactive material in their vehicles in December 2005, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in the report on its investigation.
The congressional watchdog agency said the test was designed to examine potential weaknesses related to radiation monitors that have been installed at U.S. border ports of entry, the GAO said.
The monitors worked. But the investigators, posing as employees of a fictitious, still got past the border patrol with fake paperwork authorizing them to transport the material, the report said.
You’ve gotta be shittin’ me. Our crack team of security experts is as gullible as…my high school secretaries? (Who, by way of illustration, fell for my forged early releases almost weekly. Or maybe they just wanted to be rid of me. Both scenarios are equally plausible.)
But wait, it gets better - errr, worse…
As part of the GAO undercover test, investigators easily bought a small amount of radioactive material from a commercial source by telephone, the agency said.
The purchase was not challenged because suppliers are not required to determine whether buyers have a legitimate reason for acquiring such material and are not required to ask for an NRC authorization document when small quantities are purchased, the GAO said.
“We could have purchased all of the radioactive sources used in our two undercover border crossings by making multiple purchases from different suppliers… using false identities, and had all of the radioactive sources conveniently shipped to our nation’s capital,” the letter said.
In other words, Shane and I - both nerds with a multitude of chronic allergies - have to jump through flaming hoops just to get our drugged-out paws on pseudoephedrine (a fucking decongestant, mind you!), while potential terrorists cart radioactive materials to and fro? Radioactive materials that they ordered over the phone!?
WTF. Seriously, just WTF.