Tom Bell, CEO of government contractor Leidos, said in a Breitbart News interview that the United States needs to spend more on fixed screening infrastructure at ports of entry and border crossings if officials want to catch what is actually moving through them, including narcotics hidden in vehicles.
Bell, speaking with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle, said Leidos builds much of the scanning equipment used to inspect people, cars, trucks, and rail traffic at U.S. ports and border facilities. That equipment, he said, can verify whether cargo actually matches what is listed on a shipment’s bill of lading.
“Leidos is a major player in ports and border security,” Bell said. “Everything from scanning people, cars, trucks, railroad containers, railroad cars, all of those can pass through Leidos security equipment to make sure that we know what’s coming through and whether what’s coming through actually matches the bill of lading that is supposed to be in that truck or train.”
But Bell said the system is far from complete. Many crossings simply lack the equipment needed to inspect everything passing through.
“The problem is there’s — it’s porous. Not every port has one. Not every railroad crossing has one. Not every car is screened for narcotics, and our equipment can do that,” Bell said.
Closing that gap, Bell said, will take money — and he suggested the officials overseeing border enforcement already know it.
“But what’s going to be required is, and I’m sure the ports and border customs, border patrol, and Secretary Mullin are focused on this, a little bit of investment in the fixed infrastructure that’s going to allow us to have more of what’s coming into this nation actually surveyed for whether or not it’s authentically what it says it is on the bill of lading,” Bell said.
Bell opened the discussion by outlining the breadth of Leidos’s federal work, which spans the Department of War, U.S. intelligence agencies, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Social Security Administration, and several components of the Department of Homeland Security, including the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
“We are the number one federal IT provider, and that gives us installed base and domain knowledge at essentially every department and every agency in the federal government,” Bell said. “From that, we develop mission solutions that help our government be better, faster, cheaper at serving its missions. What do I mean by that? We’re the number eight supplier at the Department of War.”
“That’s what we bring together: hardware, software, people, mission knowledge, solutions,” Bell added.
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