Policy Debate - Transportation Infrastructure

Contention 1: Inherency _A___US Ports are lacking security now Douglas Frantz, previously chief investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Managing Director of Kroll"s Business Intelligence Washington office, investigative reporter, 7/15/12, "Port security: U.S. fails to meet deadline for scanning of cargo containers", http://www.washingtonpost.com... The Obama administration has failed to meet a legal deadline for scanning all shipping containers for radioactive material before they reach the United States, a requirement aimed at strengthening maritime security and preventing terrorists from smuggling a nuclear device into any of the nation"s 300 sea and river ports. The Department of Homeland Security was given until this month to ensure that 100 percent of inbound shipping containers are screened at foreign ports. But the department"s secretary, Janet Napolitano, informed Congress in May that she was extending a two-year blanket exemption to foreign ports because the screening is proving too costly and cumbersome. She said it would cost $16 billion to implement scanning measures at the nearly 700 ports worldwide that ship to the United States. Instead, the DHS relies on intelligence-gathering and analysis to identify "high-risk" containers, which are checked before being loaded onto ships. Under this system, fewer than half a percent of the roughly 10 million containers arriving at U.S. ports last year were scanned before departure. The DHS says that those checks turned up narcotics and other contraband but that there have been no public reports of smuggled nuclear material. In response to the 9/11 Commission, Congress passed a law in 2007 specifying that no cargo container may enter the United States before being scanned with imaging equipment and a radiation-detection device. The administration"s failure to meet the deadline has left some members of Congress and outside experts concerned about whether the threat is being taken seriously enough. "I personally do not believe they intend to comply with the law," Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), co-author of the 2007 law, said in an interview. "This is a real terrorist threat, and it has a solution. We can"t afford to wait until a catastrophic attack." The DHS says monitors scan 99 percent of the containers for radiation after they arrive at U.S. ports. But experts say the monitors at U.S. ports are not sophisticated enough to detect nuclear devices or highly enriched uranium, which emit low levels of radiation. The Government Accountability Office has warned that a nuclear device could be detonated while at a port " containers often sit for days awaiting radiation checks " causing billions of dollars in damage in addition to the loss of life. Estimates of damage caused by a nuclear detonation at a major port range from tens of billions of dollars to $1 trillion. Shipping containers are potentially ideal for smuggling weapons, people and other illicit cargo; ensuring the integrity of the contents is difficult and costly. The standard container is 40 feet long and 8 feet high and holds more than 30 tons of cargo. A large vessel carries 3,000 or more containers from hundreds of different shippers and many ports. And a single container can hold cargo from many customers. Counterterrorism experts have worried about port vulnerability since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the attacks, reportedly told interrogators he had considered sending explosives to the United States hidden inside a shipment of personal computers from Japan. States, including North and South Carolina, changes in container security measures are of great concern in these communities. __B__Major security risks are extremely high now at our ports. Hahn 12 (Congresswoman Janice Hahn, Congressional Documents and Publications, May 9, 2012, "Congresswoman Laura Richardson Asks GAO to Examine Port Security Vulnerabilities"; Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA) News Release, http://richardson.house.gov...) Congresswoman Janice Hahn"s bill, H.R. 4005 "Gauging American Port Security Act" or Gaps Act, today successfully passed by a unanimous vote in the Homeland Security Committee. H.R. 4005 directs the Department of Homeland Security to conduct a comprehensive classified examination of remaining gaps in port Security and prepare a plan to address them. "Pretending a threat doesn"t exist does not make it go away," Rep. Hahn said. "The lesson of 9/11 is to be vigilant and proactive in seeking out and preventing our country"s most pressing threats. More than a decade after 9/11, our ports remain possible points of entry for terrorists and their weapons. Ports are also a key part of our economy. If an attack were ever to occur, it would cause a catastrophic loss of jobs and damage to our economic recovery. This situation requires a legislative solution and I hope that the resulting blueprint will guide Congress in creating effective legislation to help guard our ports." Ships make 50,000 calls a year on U.S. ports, carrying two billion tons of freight and 134 million passengers. Each day our ports move both imports and exports totaling some $3.8 billion worth of goods through all 50 states. Additionally, ports move 99.4 percent of overseas cargo volume by weight and generate $3.95 trillion in international trade. Unfortunately less than 3% of cargo coming into the country is scanned, giving terrorist opportunities to smuggle themselves or their weapons into the United States with little risk of detection. An attack on the Port of Los Angeles complex, for example, would cost billions to the regional economy and put thousands of port employees out of work and cause the demise of hundreds of local businesses.   Thus my partner Josh and I present the following plan Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its investment in radio frequency identification and related technology for port security Our plan will be enforced through normal means. The affirmative team reserves the right to fiat and define all terms.  Solvency __A__An investment in Radio Frequency Identification will allow for improved security and efficiency. Tsai 12-7-07 (Louis Tsai, Part of the University of California, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, "Container Tracking with RFID and Port Security", WINMEC, http://www.winmec.ucla.edu...) Large-scale implementation of RFID into ports has not occurred yet. It is still in its early stages. Many trials and tests have been conducted at ports throughout the world. Benefits ranging from lower operating cost to higher efficiency of flow of goods have been experienced. RFID is able to provide reliable information at any time and be able to perform security tasks that would otherwise require many people and much time. An investment in RFID can, thus, serve two purposes: as a business accelerator in terms of supply chain efficiency, and as an enabler for improved security12. B. Technology solves Lukas, 4/8/2004 (Aaron, "Protection without Protectionism: Reconciling Trade and Homeland Security" Center for Trade Policy Studies CATO Trade Policy Analysis No 27.) The future of trade security will rely heavily on technology. There will never be enough human inspectors to look into every cargo container, truck, and rail car. Cargo cannot be guarded 24 hours a day. Technology promises to bridge the manpower gap by enabling the continual monitoring and tracking of freight. The use of electronics is already prevalent in commercial shipping. Cameras observe storage and loading areas at factories, ports, and warehouses. Digital identification cards restrict access to sensitive areas and store digital information about employees, including photographs, and increasingly, biometric data. Information about a cargo container"s contents is electronically transmitted to Customs officials before the container is even loaded onto a ship. Ironically, the single most visible element of the trading system"the cargo container" remains stubbornly low-tech and notoriously insecure. Indeed, instructions on how to break into a shipping container in under two minutes are readily available on the Internet.73 Most container seals currently in use are designed to detect intrusion, not stop it. Yet even in that limited role, many container seals are easily defeated.   Advantage 1: terrorism Al Qaida is targeting maritime transport Goslin, 2012 (Charles Goslin, Vice President of International Operations for Duos Technologies, Inc. senior advisor to the Regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) in the U.S. Duos Technology Library "Maritime and Port Security White Paper" http://www.duostechnologies.com... ) Global trade is dependent mainly on maritime transport. It is estimated that more than 46,000 vessels and 4,000 ports make up the world"s maritime transportation system. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimated in 2001 that 5.8 billion tons of goods were traded by sea in 2001; more than 80 percent of the world"s trade. This fact alone makes maritime networks an attractive target of terrorists. Although it has been some time since Osama bin Laden has been seen, it is ominous that in one of his last video appearances in October 2004 he confirmed that his agenda remained primarily economic. While terrorists have in the past targeted land or aviation assets, experts believe that this could soon change to include shipping, port, coastal facilities, and container/container yards are increasingly vulnerable because secondary emphasis has been placed on hardening these assets due to the urgent need to address threats to aviation facilities and transportation. Intelligence officials have identified cargo freighters they believe are controlled by Al Qaida, which could be used by the terrorist network or its affiliates to ferry operatives, explosive components, cash or commodities on the high seas. One example is a well-dressed middle-eastern man discovered by Italian police who had hidden himself in a cargo container destined for the U.S. He was equipped with a bed, toilet, water supply, satellite phone, laptop computer, cameras and maps. He also had security passes to various airports in the U.S. RFID"s take away the risk of terrorist accessing ports IBM 2006 (International Business Machines Corporation, written September 28th, 2006, http://www.ibm.com..., accessed September 10th, 2012, AL) In a volatile environment, such as an oil refinery or gas facility, disaster is just a split-second away. Whether natural or manmade, the first priority is always employee safety. An RFID system can offer instant identification and an accurate headcount of evacuated employees. And with the possibility of terrorist attack, tracking people in and around sensitive areas of the facility is critical to protecting people and assets alike. RFID transponders can help guide rescue teams to injured or trapped employees. Control systems can authorize or de-authorize individuals or vehicles for different areas of the plant, with real-time alerts for violation of rules. Tracking systems offer frame-by-frame instant replay of past events for post analysis. In addition to locating people, RFID allows instant identification of high-value equipment and strategic production materials C. Terrorists very likely and would most likely use container ships to smuggle weapons Konkel, 2005, (Todd Konkel- professor Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University) "Container Security: Preventing a Nuclear Catastrophe", International Policy Solutions, http://irps.ucsd.edu...) This nation faces a potentially greater threat, however, from a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) making its way into the U.S. in one of the thousands of cargo containers that enter this country every day. In June 2004, the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation issued a memo reflecting this view: "Despite the importance of seaport security, perhaps no other mode of transportation is currently more vulnerable to future attacks than our Nation"s Marine Transportation System."1 Although a future attack involving a chemical or biological WMD could have tragic consequences, a nuclear weapon, which could cause hundreds of thousands of deaths in an instant, presents the most concerning threat. In Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, Harvard professor Graham Allison shares a brief but revealing excerpt from a private conversation that took place with former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge in February 2004. When asked what worried him most, Secretary Ridge replied with a single word: "nuclear."2 Later in his book, Allison states that a nuclear weapon used by terrorists in an attack on the United States "is far more likely to arrive in a cargo container than on the tip of a missile."3 The threat of a nuclear attack involving a seaborne container lies at the nexus of two critically important security issues: the availability of nuclear materials and the vulnerability of cargo containers. Although the U.S. government has taken a number of steps in the past few years to secure nuclear materials and improve the security of the 2 country"s ports, the threat of a nuclear weapon entering the United States undetected in a shipping container remains very real. Much additional work, including international standards for container security and expanded international cooperation to prevent the proliferation of nuclear materials, is necessary to prevent a catastrophe that could dwarf the tragedy of 9/11. And, A port attack collapses global free trade " our internal link outweighs " 3 week timeframe Flynn 03 (Stephen, Nat"l Sec Studies, "The Fragile state of container security," testimony before the senate, March 20 http://www.cfr.org...) A year later I joined with former senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart in preparing our report, "America: Still Unprepared"Still In Danger." We observed that "nineteen men wielding box-cutters forced the United States to do to itself what no adversary could ever accomplish: a successful blockade of the U.S. economy. If a surprise terrorist attack were to happen tomorrow involving the sea, rail, or truck transportation systems that carry millions of tons of trade to the United States each day, the response would likely be the same"a self-imposed global embargo." Based on that analysis, we identified as second of the six critical mandates that deserve the nation"s immediate attention: "Make trade security a global priority; the system for moving goods affordably and reliably around the world is ripe for exploitation and vulnerable to mass disruption by terrorists." This is why the topic of today"s hearing is so important. The stakes are enormous. U.S. prosperity"and much of its power"relies on its ready access to global markets. Both the scale and pace at which goods move between markets has exploded in recent years thanks in no small part to the invention and proliferation of the intermodal container. These ubiquitous boxes"most come in the 40"x8"x8" size"have transformed the transfer of cargo from a truck, train, and ship into the transportation equivalent of connecting Lego blocks. The result has been to increasingly diminish the role of distance for a supplier or a consumer as a constraint in the world marketplace. Ninety percent of the world"s freight now moves in a container. Companies like Wal-Mart and General Motors move up to 30 tons of merchandise or parts across the vast Pacific Ocean from Asia to the West Coast for about $1600. The transatlantic trip runs just over a $1000"which makes the postage stamp seem a bit overpriced. But the system that underpins the incredibly efficient, reliable, and affordable movement of global freight has one glaring shortcoming in the post-9-11 world"it was built without credible safeguards to prevent it from being exploited or targeted by terrorists and criminals. Prior to September 11, 2001, virtually anyone in the world could arrange with an international shipper or carrier to have an empty intermodal container delivered to their home or workplace. They then could load it with tons of material, declare in only the most general terms what the contents were, "seal" it with a 50-cent lead tag, and send it on its way to any city and town in the United States. The job of transportation providers was to move the box as expeditiously as possible. Exercising any care to ensure that the integrity of a container"s contents was not compromised may have been a commercial practice, but it was not a requirement. The responsibility for making sure that goods loaded in a box were legitimate and authorized was shouldered almost exclusively by the importing jurisdiction. But as the volume of containerized cargo grew exponentially, the number of agents assigned to police that cargo stayed flat or even declined among most trading nations. The rule of thumb in the inspection business is that it takes five agents three hours to conduct a thorough physical examination of a single full intermodal container. Last year nearly 20 million containers washed across America"s borders via a ship, train, and truck. Frontline agencies had only enough inspectors and equipment to examine between 1-2 percent of that cargo. Thus, for would-be terrorists, the global intermodal container system that is responsible for moving the overwhelming majority of the world"s freight satisfies the age-old criteria of opportunity and motive. "Opportunity" flows from (1) the almost complete absence of any security oversight in the loading and transporting of a box from its point of origin to its final destination, and (2) the fact that growing volume and velocity at which containers move around the planet create a daunting "needle-in-the-haystack" problem for inspectors. "Motive" is derived from the role that the container now plays in underpinning global supply chains and the likely response by the U.S. government to an attack involving a container. Based on statements by the key officials at U.S. Customs, the Transportation Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Department of Transportation, should a container be used as a "poor man"s missile," the shipment of all containerized cargo into our ports and across our borders would be halted. As a consequence, a modest investment by a terrorist could yield billions of dollars in losses to the U.S. economy by shutting down"even temporarily"the system that moves "just-in-time" shipments of parts and goods. Given the current state of container security, it is hard to imagine how a post-event lock-down on container shipments could be either prevented or short-lived. One thing we should have learned from the 9-11 attacks involving passenger airliners, the follow-on anthrax attacks, and even last fall Washington sniper spree is that terrorist incidents pose a special challenge for public officials. In the case of most disasters, the reaction by the general public is almost always to assume the event is an isolated one. Even if the post-mortem provides evidence of a systemic vulnerability, it often takes a good deal of effort to mobilize a public policy response to redress it. But just the opposite happens in the event of a terrorist attack"especially one involving catastrophic consequences. When these attacks take place, the assumption by the general public is almost always to presume a general vulnerability unless there is proof to the contrary. Government officials have to confront head-on this loss of public confidence by marshalling evidence that they have a credible means to manage the risk highlighted by the terrorist incident. In the interim as recent events have shown, people will refuse to fly, open their mail, or even leave their homes. If a terrorist were to use a container as a weapon-delivery devise, the easiest choice would be high-explosives such as those used in the attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Some form of chemical weapon, perhaps even involving hazardous materials, is another likely scenario. A bio-weapon is a less attractive choice for a terrorist because of the challenge of dispersing the agent in a sufficiently concentrated form beyond the area where the explosive devise goes off. A "dirty bomb" is the more likely threat vs. a nuclear weapon, but all these scenarios are conceivable since the choice of a weapon would not be constrained by any security measures currently in place in our seaports or within the intermodal transportation industry. This is why a terrorist attack involving a cargo container could cause such profound economic disruption. An incident triggered by even a conventional weapon going off in a box could result in a substantial loss of life. In the immediate aftermath, the general public will want reassurance that one of the many other thousands of containers arriving on any given day will not pose a similar risk. The President of the United States, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and other keys officials responsible for the security of the nation would have to stand before a traumatized and likely skeptical American people and outline the measures they have in place to prevent another such attack. In the absence of a convincing security framework to manage the risk of another incident, the public would likely insist that all containerized cargo be stopped until adequate safeguards are in place. Even with the most focused effort, constructing that framework from scratch could take months"even years. Yet, within three weeks, the entire worldwide intermodal transportation industry would effectively be brought to its knees"as would much of the freight movements that make up international trade. ____ Economic collapse leads to Global nuclear war Bearden 2k (Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army, www.cheniere.org/techpapers/Unnecessary%20Energy%20Crisis.doc) ET Bluntly, we foresee these factors - and others { } not covered - converging to a catastrophic collapse of the world economy in about eight years. As the collapse of the Western economies nears, one may expect catastrophic stress on the 160 developing nations as the developed nations are forced to dramatically curtail orders. International Strategic Threat Aspects History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China - whose long range nuclear missiles can reach the United States - attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is his side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all, is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs, with a great percent of the WMD arsenals being unleashed . The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades. _____Nuclear war causes the earth to explode CHALKO 2003 (Dr. Tom J., MSc., Ph.D., Head of Geophysics Research, Scientific E Research P/L, "Can a Neutron Bomb Accelerate Global Volcanic Activity?" http://sci-e-research.com...) Consequences of using modern nuclear weapons can be far more serious than previously imagined. These consequences relate to the fact that most of the heat generated in the planetary interior is a result of nuclear decay. Over the last few decades, all superpowers have been developing so-called "neutron bombs". These bombs are designed to emit intensive neutron radiation while creating relatively little local mechanical damage. Military are very keen to use neutron bombs in combat, because lethal neutron radiation can peneterate even the largest and deepest bunkers. However, the military seem to ignore the fact that a neutron radiation is capable to reach significant depths in the planetary interior. In the process of passing through the planet and losing its intensity, a neutron beam stimulates nuclei of radioactive isotopes naturally present inside the planet to disintegrate. This disintegration in turn, generates more neutron and other radiation. The entire process causes increased nuclear heat generation in the planetary interior, far greater than the initial energy of the bomb. It typically takes many days or even weeks for this extra heat to conduct/convect to the surface of the planet and cause increased seismic/volcanic activity. Due to this variable delay, nuclear tests are not currently associated with seismic/volcanic activity, simply because it is believed that there is no theoretical basis for such an association. Perhaps you heard that after every major series of nuclear test there is always a period of increased seismic activity in some part of the world. This observable fact CANNOT be explained by direct energy of the explosion. The mechanism of neutron radiation accelerating decay of radioactive isotopes in the planetary interior, however, is a VERY PLAUSIBLE and realistic explanation. The process of accelerating volcanic activity is nuclear in essence. Accelerated decay of unstable radioactive isotopes already present in the planetary interior provides the necessary energy. The TRUE danger of modern nuclear weaponry is that their neutron radiation is capable to induce global overheating of the planetary interior, global volcanic activity and, in extreme circumstances, may even cause the entire planet to explode.