We presently have adequate sniffer devices in this country to help us screen the trucks and containers coming into this country at our checkpoints and ports. Now we should be conducting massive recording of odors of trucking shipments and containers for database evaluations to insure that we do not unnecessarily impede the flow of trade or delay parts needed to run our economic powerhouse. We must provide for security and proper flow without creating additional choke points or create stoppage, which will result in billions in lost productivity. By having huge databases of sampling we will be able to determine and to find anomalies in rogue transportation events and prevent an attack on our homeland.

We need to know exactly how well the sniffers work, when they go astray labeling something as hazardous, radiologically threatening or biologically unsafe. There are many substances and chemicals, which are contained with in legitimate products, which are quite safe and properly controlled and relatively harmless in their uses. A container stopped due to radiological readings maybe a much-needed piece of equipment on it's way to a hospital to save lives. Or a chemical, which is much needed in water treatment to prevent biological risks to human life and water supply.

Eventually we may see Sniffer Sensors inside trucks and containers as the ultimate answer.

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But at first we will need sensors and sniffers attached to infrastructure such as Highway bridges, port cranes, hand helds for Coast Guard personal boarding foreign ships, land border crossings and airports.

False alarms and unneeded impeding of our highways, border crossings, airports and ports will only lead to citizen and trading partner mistrust and will cost the country and the GDP in unnecessary decreases in national productivity. We need to get our ducks in a row and start by designing multi-sensor database profiles, which take into consideration normal shipments and everyday acceptable movements of products, raw materials and parts. By doing this we can prevent the gridlocks at airports while still catching shoe bombers, stop biological contaminants and weapons while still allowing for cross border trade and rest assure that the sum of all fears floating into one of our ports never makes it onto the docks, without impeding the flow of trade or upsetting our trusted trading partners, which has made the United States what it is today.

We must not live in fear and we must protect our homeland. By having large databases, which can instantly profile shipments we will be that much closer to the security we are trying to achieve and keep us at a level of safety that we deserve. It took a long time to build this great nation, we need to play it smart, set up the last lines of defense in a way that is becoming of our status as the number one economic powerhouse in the world.

Protection of our trucking, aviation, railways, port infrastructures is of primary concern, preventing weapons of mass destruction into our country has never been of greater importance, so lets get this show on the road, figure out what we need, enter the data into the databases, test the system, make corrections and keep the flow efficient, it is the only way to win this war on terror without giving up our quality of life, number one world status or right of free travel in our own country.

If you have thoughts on transportation or shipping security, which will solve the problems we face in this new era of terror without sacrificing the streamlined nature of our currents infrastructures and system, then lets here those ideas now.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs