Fedex is a separate topic than the container ports thing.

You or I can go to Fedex or UPS or one of those other places and DECLARE what is the content of a package, and our declaration can be wrong. There was a Value Jet plane crash in Florida because of a wrong declaration. The company involved is up on charges for their negligence involved. A terrorist could get a job at one of these companies that ships stuff all over the nation, then send out some weapon of mass destruction in a package, then cause it to explode where it will do the most harm.

That is what I call the Fedex pin prick, and I consider it to be a pin prick, because the terrorist can do a whole lot more damage by taking the same weapon of mass destruction in a U-Haul truck, and blowing it up on a bridge over the Mississippi river, Ohio river, or further up our water ways infrastructure. Think contamination to drinking water supplies, and lots more chaos. And what does it do to our civil liberties to block this kind of vulnerability?

The container ports thing is much more important because if the nation can control the borders, and account for dangerous stuff inside the borders, then there is no need to erode civil liberties for the non-dangerous occupants inside the borders.

It seems to me that the government is doing Homeland Security much the same way that most people do Stock Market Investment, navigating by looking in the rear view mirror at what has happened in the past, but totally blind to what might happen in the future. More than ever, I think there is a need for Wargame simulations.

In wargame simulations, there is some international challenge and various different sub-commands are assigned tasks. Everyone wants the 82nd airborne, or some other unit to do THEIR task, and pretty soon the simulation shows where there is a lack of right units, or transportation capacity, or ability to process the intelligence information in a timely fashion, and from the experience, there is a learning process how to craft a better infrastructure.

Simulations work great when there are real people with real know how knowing where the problems are, and incorporating them in the game.