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Candidate
Kerry has continually attacked B2 over the issue of homeland security
regarding the importation of hard goods across Our Nation's borders via the
logistics of international trade. Not only is this a hot button issue, it is a
rather arcane field to the public, with the media doing little to increase
our knowledge.
In this age of
terrorism, the publics reflexive response is, why is not everything checked?
Candidate Kerry has deceitfully alluded to the availability of safety
enhancing technology that is nascent at best. Not yet, subject to uniform
international standards. And, not implemented by federal legislation for use by
all U.S. import/shipping companies. For example, if we
were to start checking every tractor or rail-hauled container coming into
the U.S. via Canada, one of our safest transshipment partners,
the highways, and railways would be impassible for general civilian
traffic. In other words, traffic would be backed up to the Arctic Circle, if the
roads went that far. An alternative high
security shipping practice used by a family member, involves sealed
containers of an agricultural commodity, departing its processing site
escorted by armed guard to shipping vessel departing a third world nation.
Containers are unloaded stateside and stored at additional cost in a bonded
warehouse pending inspection by U.S. Customs/Agriculture. Highly secure and very
expensive. Who do you think bears the cost of the increased security? You, the
consumer. While residents of UCD can afford
$55 Levi's jeans, most Americans can only afford $12 Kmart jeans. Workers
averaged $21.56 per hour in December 2003 in the Philadelphia metropolitan area,
which includes parts of Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland; the U.S. Department
of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 10/01/2004. That includes high paid
white-collar labor like you. Therefore, just what is candidate Kerryâs plan to
financially uplift âeverymanâ? Just as Lyndon Johnson could not give us âguns
and butterâ, Kerry will not be able to gives us âsecurity and butterâ,
especially if he pursues his latest promise to wage war against international
terrorism, which threatens the American way of life. Kerry's promises
involving changes in trade are neither readily achievable, nor affordable by the
working class. In an age when awesome
financial power inures to the party in power, party leadership will say
anything to again wield that power. I as a Democrat, find it
despicable to lie to win. The below article may
help you understand the technological complexity of tracking materiel. It
becomes even more complex, when applying it to foreign ports and the high
seas. State & Local gov't: News & featuresHP research creates "intelligent infrastructures" to track material and detect security breaches Soon webs of sensors may be
employed by a variety of government agencies to keep precise watch over supplies
and equipment as they move through the nation's transportation hubs.
Sophisticated devices will capture and interpret a profusion of tracking and
environmental data to ensure goods are in a specific location, and in a specific
condition. HP technologists are creating intelligent electronic
infrastructures they call "sentient environments" at HP Labs in Palo Alto,
Calif. Their research could produce solutions that will track items
continuously, securely and wirelessly, providing a more accurate picture of
everything from luggage in airports, to cargo containers on ships, to servers in
data centers.
Ultimately, sentient environments could enable government agencies to determine if material has been tampered with, and if so, where the security breach occurred. "What you want to do is certify electronically if your goods are secure â not only when they're in range of an RFID reader,but all of the time," said Salil Pradhan, HP's chief technologist for radio frequency identification (RFID) and leader of the related research program at HP Labs. Sentient environments combine the object-tracking abilities of RFID with sensors that capture video images, determine location, and measure temperature and other factors. The result is an infrastructure that knows precisely what happens to objects in its vicinity. RFID experience HP's development of sentient environment solutions builds on the company's experience as a leader in enterprise RFID technology. HP is rolling out its first RFID-ready products as part of a pilot program with Wal-Mart in the Dallas/FortWorth area. HP already uses RFID within its own supply chain, and it provides RFID services to customers in the public and private sectors. The technology uses radio tags similar to those commonly found in employee ID badges. RFID could soon turn up on everything from cases of semiconductors to soap to fine wines as more businesses look to the tags as a technical advancement over bar codes. In the private sector, RFID tags give businesses the ability to automatically track, in real time, a product from the manufacturing plant all the way to the cash register. "As an early adopter of RFID in our own operations, we can attest to the tremendous advantage it affords businesses and their customers," said Dick Lampman, HP's senior vice president of research and director of HP Labs. Lampman is on the board of directors for EPCglobal, a not-for-profit academic and industry group that leads a global effort to establish RFID standards and create a uniform electronic product code (EPC). The EPC, which resides on the RFID tag, identifies a specific item in the supply chain. As advances continue, major retailers and other businesses likely will leverage RFID and are starting to set mandates that require their supply chain partners to use the technology in the future, beginning with tagging at the case and pallet level. Next steps RFID technology plays a key role in the creation of sentient environments, which will offer dramatic improvement over existing solutions and help government meet a range of complex requirements. RFID systems only track goods within range of a reader, so items that are out of range â deep within a warehouse, for example â may be unaccounted for or simply lost. By contrast, the sentient environment infrastructure will be self-configuring, self-managing and self-healing.With a hierarchy of heterogeneous wireless network structures and computing nodes, the infrastructure could process and filter data from both sensors and RFID. Computing nodes are aware of each other, coordinate with each other and compensate for each other. If one fails, the network is unharmed. If conditions change, the network adjusts. The technology will have a range of uses for public-sector organizations. If a shipment of meals intended for a family services agency or a county hospital is spoiled, for instance, the agency could determine where and when the refrigeration system failed. Similarly, if a delivery of confidential tax records or election results were tampered with, the agency could determine where and when the security breach occurred. Sentient environment technology also may become part of the U.S. government's port security initiative, which requires shipping facilities to monitor the location of all cargo containers and detect if the containers were opened during transit. Furthermore, these applications could help environmental agencies track waste or spot certain types of violations. Corrections and parole officers already use RFID technology; however, advances could lead to tracking the whereabouts of inmates more accurately and cost-effectively. Sentient environment solutions could arm officers with an additional level of protection through better information in the event of a crisis or security problem. Sentient environments in action How would sentient environment systems work? Here's a possible scenario: A container of seized goods arrives at a government warehouse and is scanned by an RFID reader. A Web cam provides a visual identification and follows the container to the section of the warehouse where it is placed. As the container moves about the warehouse, its exact location is tracked by LOCUS technology, a tool developed by HP researchers that functions as an indoor GPS. Computing nodes use radio frequency and ultrasound pulses to locate themselves relative to one another, providing a set of coordinates for the container. Additional sensors within the warehouse communicate data about temperature, air pressure, humidity and other environmental factors. The sentient system also continuously monitors the health of the RFID readers, identifying those that appear to be foundering, then either notifying a manager or automatically shifting work to a healthy reader to prevent the system from going down. All the data is available visually via a technology called GeoView, a three-dimensional graphical user interface that lets users visualize data and view it over time. Sensible solutions Leveraging HP's broad experience with RFID solutions, researchers believe they can build intelligent, secure and robust monitoring systems that will strengthen homeland security and meet a number of other government and commercial needs. "HP Labs has the ability to look
beyond RFID at how it can be combined with other sensing technologies, and how
it can be applied in different settings," said Ian Robertson, director of the
RFID program at HP."It is a core part of our program." For the latest contract and pricing information, see www.hp.com/go/govcatalog or call 888/887-2081 Craig Melidosian RealSolutions Network P O Box 33355 Phila PA 19142-0555 215-724-8148 24hr voice/fax 215-724-3212 voice Breakthrough Relationships Enhancing Value in Community & Government Copyright Â1998-2004 FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |
