Abstract: This chapter describes how transportation security must be viewed from an international perspective. It requires attention to the modes that are involved in international activities, notably aviation and shipping as well as borders through which millions of people enter the United States annually. Safeguarding transportation facilities is essential for many reasons. First, they are attractive targets because of their functional economic importance. All countries are dependent on transportation. Every day tons of goods are carried by water, air, road, or rail and millions of people use private or public transport for business and leisure trips. Millions of people work in transportation or transport related industries. Second, transportation vehicles make powerful and effective weapons. Truck bombs have become commonplace and the potential of airplanes was tragically revealed by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Finally, in order to attack a target, terrorists must travel to their destination and convey their weapons to the target. Thus borders have to be safeguarded, but this must be done in a manner that does not place undue burdens on innocent travelers and on the flow of goods. The tradeoffs between security and commerce are complex, but they cannot be ignored.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-02-22
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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