Talk:Lecture 4
With respect to the Kyllo case and search and seizure protections, does the Patriot Act include anything that would make it easier to monitor conduct or substances in a blanket fashion, or make it easier to get permission to do so – are there any time, place, and manner exceptions (like there are for free speech)?
In the case involving cocaine at the airport and the search being allowed because the person could have no reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to contraband, how important was it that the individual brought the contraband into a public environment? Did the Court mention if that was at all important?
Is the grand plan to combine sensors for different forms of WMD at ports into one “super-detector” (i.e. bringing together the work of Dr. Norman and others working on similar capabilities with respect to chemical and biological agent detection)? Is that feasible? Is there any coordination pushing towards that end today?
Perhaps a silly question, but are there any potential side effects to pumping neutrons through items in a shipping container (i.e. food)?
Are scientists at the Nat’l Labs compensated in any additional way for developing such devices, those that are commercially viable and thus patented and manufactured for sale by a private firm? Do they think that they should be?
With respect to Dr. Prosnitz’s hypothetical, I think that if the device could be limited with design barriers to focus on solely contraband. Also, I would note that I don’t believe that the Yellow Alert or the super-general description of the threat would be enough to warrant use of a detection device without such design barriers; at least, not in the eyes of the Court, given the information provided to us in the presentation.
Active interrogation as detonator?
Dr. Norman's excellent lecture made me wonder whether someone could use active interrogation of containers to start a nuclear chain reaction. Could someone arrange things such that a mass of 235U around critical mass is just waiting for the thermal neutrons from a "nuclear car wash" to initiate a nuclear chain reaction?
Even if the thermal neutrons cannot be made to cause a chain reaction directly, I wonder whether they could still provide useful information to an attacker. One of the difficult things for an attacker, I presume, is to know when exactly to detonate a bomb. An important port is a good target. A gamma ray detector within the container could be the trigger for a more conventional gun-type nuclear bomb. There are certainly other ways for the bomb to determine its location, but they typically involve either electromagnetic communication through the container or monitoring and intervention by a human.
Parvez Anandam, 9/24/05
SMM: Nice idea, I heard a bunch of physicists say the same thing the first time I heard the talk. And no, there aren't enough neutrons. Personally I think GPS or a motion switch would be a lot easier. Particularly since it would be even better to ship the container downtown than have it blow up at the Port.
To add to this conversation, I had a similar query, if not more general. It's a very basic question asked of any new device or technology, but I feel it is pertinent. If we're going to spend a total of $1 billion on nuclear detection devices around the globe, how certain are we that they will work all or most of the time? How fool-proof is this "nuclear car wash?"
At the beginning of Don Prosnitz's presentation, he stated that technology can be used for our defense, but that is also something to fear when in the wrong hands. Just as it is with savvy computer hackers, we might be able to defend against their viruses and hacking, but eventually they will find a way to break our defenses. Can't the same be said of the nuclear car wash? What steps have been made to make sure that terrorists or others planning on detonating nuclear material don't find a loophole in this security system?
If there's any flaw in the device at all, is it wise to spend $1 billion? I suppose it depends on how large the flaw is, how possible it is for the system to be broken. But if a break is made at even one major port, the cost could be catastrophic. Should we look at this as a "glass-is-half-full" deal, because we have at least some form of efficient protection around the world?-Sean Cardeno
Cmckenzie: In response to Sean, it is clear that you can find a flaw in almost any system. The more pertinent question is, 'how much does this alter the threat profile'? If a terrorist is considering spending large amounts of money and time finding/purchasing/making a dirty bomb but I then had to rely on an error in screening or do further work to evade screening, it looks less attractive to him/her as a method of attack. If we make every method of attack as unappealing as possible we can (i) deter terrorists who are unmotivated (ii) force them to use methods that are less rather than more harmful and (iii) generally reduce our risk profile.
Stephen Crockett/SCMy feelings are you don't want to make it easy for terrorist to smuggle in a device so any screening is better than none. Of course the terrorist can attempt to make an unauthorized entry in to US in the same manor that drug runners do. IMO whats needed is a comprehensive approach where interdiction is attempted before the device leaves its source country, while in transit, upon attempted entry thru legal or illegal US access point, and while in the US prior to activation. This raises the obvious debate over allocation of resources and strategy.
Would it possible for the entire ship to pass thru a "car wash" station of some design, screening everything aboard while at see before entering US territorial waters? Ships that attempt to avoid the sea stations could then be intercepted by Coast Guard etc. If there were a detonation upon screening at least it would be away from large coastal cities. ...Steve C.
Benchmarking
Benchmarking the cost of deploying the detection system that Eric Norman discussed for cargo container scanning:
He estimated that to be able to scan every container (or a large proportion, anyway), it will take about 100 scanners worldwide put at the right ports. The cost for a single scanner he estimates at $1 million to $10 million. Taking the larger (maybe to include some other accessory costs that crop up) the cost of the 100 scanners is $1 billion. But compared to what? Is this a good price to pay for scanning shipping containers for improvised nuclear weapons?
As a points of reference, I took a look at the budgets for the Department of Homeland Security and the Port of Oakland, both conveniently available on the web, easily searchable from those organizations websites.
DHS Fiscal year 2006 budget: $41.4 billion. This includes many things such as FEMA grants to hurricane victims, airport screening technologies, etc. It even includes a line for $125 million to purchase radiation portal monitors, which I think is what Prosnitz was describing, and $138.2 million for a pilot for container screening, CSI, to be piloted in 7 countries. So $1 billion would certainly overshoot the current budget for this aspect of DHS, but would be plenty to pilot this technology in a number of ports.
See the DHS budget for 2006: http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/Budget_BIB-FY2006.pdf
Port of Oakland The total yearly operating revenue for the port of oakland is $250 million (looks to be growing about $10 million a year). They are currently in the red, but hope to climb out of the red in the next several years. They are spending $2 million right now on a program to reduce emissions near the port. In their budget, amounts as small as $.5 million are mentioned initiatives. So a $10 million scanner seems like it could be prohibitively expensive without some major help from the government. The bigger analysis here which can't really be done on the internet is whether or not scanning a lot of containers would slow down operations to the degree of not being feasible to run a port. --Jameel 22:56, 21 Sep 2005 (PDT)
SMM: This is really good research & reasoning. The other way to benchmark is to say what harm are society is trying to prevent, which is presumably a much bigger number. By using current DHS spending, you're implicitly saying "they've already made a judgment about how much we should be spending on the total nuclear threat, so let's assume that this judgment is correct and ask if acquiring port monitors would be an unreasonably large slice of the total pie."
There is also a subtlety here. The federal government doesn't just spend money, it mandates the ports to spend money. And they don't need federal help to comply even if the mandate is very large. Why? Because if the feds pass a regulation, it's like a cartel: All ports have to do it, so no port gains a competitive advantage. Of course, the ports might become so expensive that they did a smaller volume of trade. But that, too is reasonable if the "true" cost of doing business requires them to pay for mitigating the risk their operations pose to Oakland instead of foisting those obligations off on the rest of society. This is called "internalizing negative externalities" in the jargon.
It seems to me that mandating the ports themselves to pay for the bulk of the costs of WMD detection systems (as Dr. Norman suggested) doesn't make a whole lot of sense on equity grounds. First of all, assuming the detection systems work, their benefits are extremely diffuse. Preventing a nuclear attack in Oakland would benefit not just the port and the regional community, it would benefit the entire nation as well as the international community. As we see from Katrina, rebuilding after a catastrophe can cost taxpayers around the nation billions of dollars; furthermore, a nuclear attack on a major port/center of commerce like the Bay Area, LA, or New York, would have severe consequences for economies around the world (in terms of lost business, etc.). I think that the idea that ports alone should pay for detection systems because their operations pose a risk to the communities in which they are located doesn't take into account the fact that these communities (and the nation as a whole) derive great benefits (not just risks) from the ports' existence. As demanders of imports and producers of exports, most of us benefit from the existence of ports so we should help pay for dealing with the risks that come with them. I thought about this a little more, and maybe it doesn't matter if you make the ports pay, because they can pass the extra cost on to consumers anyway.
On the topic of cost benefit analysis, one billion dollars doesn’t sound like a whole lot of money to prevent a nuclear attack, since the cost of an attack would likely be much greater than this (using Katrina as some sort of benchmark for the cost of a disaster). I guess we’d want to know a few things in doing a decision analysis on this: 1) How likely is it that someone will attempt a nuclear attack by sending a bomb into a port? and 2) How likely are detection systems to prevent such an attack (either by detecting a bomb or deterring would be attackers)? If we could figure out the chance of an attack, how much an attack would cost us, and the chance of preventing an attack using detection systms, maybe we could calculate some sort of expected values for installing and not installing detection systems?
With respect to the Kyllo case and search and seizure protections, does the Patriot Act include anything that would make it easier to monitor conduct or substances in a blanket fashion, or make it easier to get permission to do so – are there any time, place, and manner exceptions (like there are for free speech)?
In the case involving cocaine at the airport and the search being allowed because the person could have no reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to contraband, how important was it that the individual brought the contraband into a public environment? Did the Court mention if that was at all important?
Is the grand plan to combine sensors for different forms of WMD at ports into one “super-detector” (i.e. bringing together the work of Dr. Norman and others working on similar capabilities with respect to chemical and biological agent detection)? Is that feasible? Is there any coordination pushing towards that end today?
Perhaps a silly question, but are there any potential side effects to pumping neutrons through items in a shipping container (i.e. food)?
Are scientists at the Nat’l Labs compensated in any additional way for developing such devices, those that are commercially viable and thus patented and manufactured for sale by a private firm? Do they think that they should be?
With respect to Dr. Prosnitz’s hypothetical, I think that if the device could be limited with design barriers to focus on solely contraband. Also, I would note that I don’t believe that the Yellow Alert or the super-general description of the threat would be enough to warrant use of a detection device without such design barriers; at least, not in the eyes of the Court, given the information provided to us in the presentation.
Cmckenzie: (In response to the question about royalties to scientists) - the more pertinent issue is that the scanners shouldn't be patented at all. They are most effective when broadly distributed, developed with government money, etc. Why on earth would one want to limit their distribution by allowing a corporation to get rich charging a monopoly price?
