This Can't End Well

I can already see the TV ads during the campaign season ramping up to blame this one on somebody. Apparently a Chinese company with a US front just got a big contract for an X-ray scanning system for the Port of Los Angeles:

For the first time, a major U.S. port has purchased a sophisticated high-energy X-ray scanning system from a Chinese manufacturer, and it is paying for it with a $1.7 million port security grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The Port of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest, has procured a mobile X-ray scanning system, mounted on a Mack truck chassis, which was manufactured by a Chinese company called Nuctech Company Limited, headquartered in Beijing, whose president happens to be the son of the President of the People’s Republic of China. The Nuctech equipment will be used by the port police to inspect trucks delivering food, groceries and other supplies to cruise ships that are scheduled to depart from the busy West Coast port.

Someone, somewhere, is gearing up for a hearing on this one. Now we're not overly protectionistic here, but it seems like key security infrastructure and technologies might oughta want to stay with US manufacturers...

(props to Threatswatch)
By: Brant