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CNN Live Today
Customs Showing Off High-Tech Devices Aimed at Prevent Terrorism
Aired June 03, 2002 - 11:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: They are not just high-tech toys, they are meant to help fight terrorism. And now the U.S. Customs Service today is showing off its array of high-tech devices aimed at prevent terrorism.
Our Jeanne Meserve is live in Washington. She is outside the Reagan building and international trade center.
Jeanne, good morning.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.
As you may know, the Tom Clancy film "Sum of All Fears" came out this weekend. The plot revolves around a nuclear device that terrorists smuggle into the country.
Now the Custom Service is well ware this might make people edgy particularly wary, when taken in combination with the often repeated fact that only 1 to 2 percent of containers coming into this country are inspected.
Now they argue that they go through the manifest and the itinerary. What they do inspect is those containers that appear to pose the most threat, and what they have on display here today are many of the technological tools they use. To look to look at them, Ray Pardo joins me here.
Ray is a customs inspector at the port of Newark.
Ray, why don't we start of over here, and you show me some of these dandy little devices you helped design here.
RAY PARDO, U.S. CUSTOMS INSPECTOR: What we have over here is an acoustical drum analyzer, and this here is a transducer, and you place this up against the drum, and you program in whatever the diameter of the drum is -- 24 inches, -- and this will send the soundwave of the drum and tell you at what distance it is reflecting. If it is a 24- inch drum, it will tell, you echo 24-inches. Obviously, it tells you six cinches, or no echo, you know something is wrong with the drum, and that will warrant investigation.
MESERVE: Something wrong, meaning a secret compartment or something. PARDO: Right, something like that.
MESERVE: OK, what's next.
PARDO: This here is a noncontact infrared thermometer, and what we can do is we can (UNINTELLIGIBLE) it tell you the surface temperature.
MESERVE: You can see how hot it is out here today.
PARDO: In the sun there, we're up to 126 degrees. And in the shade there, we're down to 90.
MESERVE: Now, when you are inspecting cargo, why is this useful?
PARDO: Well, this is useful for driving a refrigerated container with insulation in the walls, and if someone smuggles (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It's where they remove the insulation, and then replace it with contraband in there. Obviously, it doesn't have the same value as insulation. And you can scan the walls of a refrigerated container. There's usually a 20 degrees difference in surface temperature to wall. That tells you something is wrong. That, again, will warrant further investigation.
MESERVE: The next device you had, you told the very conventional use most of the time.
PARDO: Right. This here is an ultrasonic thickness gauge. And what this is used for in industry, it's used for boiler inspectors or for plumbers to check for deterioration on pipes. But this measures metal, plastic or glass thickness anywhere from 40/1,000 of an inch up to 20-inches. And what we use this for is when we're inspecting machinery. We will interrogate the welds on the machinery, because the welds should be as thick as base metal or thicker. And you can tell whether someone is a good or a bad weld, meaning that someone might have taken it apart.
MESERVE: And put something inside.
PARDO: And put it back together again, right, as opposed to a factory weld.
MESERVE: This, I know, I have seen before. This is your acoustic device.
Yes, go ahead.
PARDO: This here, what this is an electronic stethoscope this. This here is the headphones that you place on your head this. This here is the amplifier that you will turn on and plug into here, up to six of these leads. Then you switch back and forth to all six of the leads.
And typically, we use this for a roll of plastic, a roll of paper, and you put this in between the reams on one side, and on the opposite side you hit lows this with a pneumatic hammer, and you'd be listening for any sound deviation. If they hollow out a void, it does not transmit sound the same through a hollow cavity as it does through a solid one (ph).
MESERVE: OK, Ray, thanks so much. These obviously devices that will tell you if there is a cavity within which something could be hidden, but it doesn't necessarily tell you what's inside there.
Customs commissioner Robert Bonner held a press conference a short time ago. He emphasized that it would be much, much harder today to bring in a weapon of mass destruction than it was before September 11th. But even he said, there is no system that's full- proof.
Daryn, back to you.
KAGAN: Thanks for showing us some of the tools. Jeanne Meserve, thank you so much.
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