A surprising development

Saturday, May 27, 2006 | 7:40 a.m.

The U.S. Coast Guard routinely conducts surprise inspections of cargo ships headed for the nation's ports, a post-9/11 tactic designed to thwart terrorists. That is a reasonable, vital strategy. The problem, as The New York Times has discovered, is that in some cases the inspections are no surprise at all.

When surprise searches are carried out the way they are supposed to be, inspectors compare actual crew and cargo with records filed at the ports, according to the Times. Sometimes they use bomb-sniffing dogs or even radiation detection devices. They may delay a boat a half day, at a cost of as much as $40,000 an hour. In the wake of complaints by some commercial shippers, in some cases the Coast Guard is telling ship captains in advance that inspectors are coming aboard, giving them as much as 24-hour notice.

Critics say that's plenty of time for terrorists - or anyone looking to avoid the authorities - to hide evidence, devise diversions or even jump ship.

"If you say, 'Heads up, when you get close to port in two days we're going to board you,' that sort of defeats the purpose of the boarding," Stephen E. Flynn, a fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Coast Guard commander, told the Times.

The Coast Guard is already stretched thin, despite an $8 billion budget that has risen 50 percent in the last five years. Port officials said that the Coast Guard is doing its best with limited resources to protect the 361 ports it patrols. Maybe so.

But Coast Guard officials should not gut their surprise inspection policy. The spot checks are a legitimate means of deterrence, and the Coast Guard should continue them. Surprise inspections should be just that - a surprise.