Entering US with nuclear bomb is no problem

Quote:

As part of the GAO undercover test, investigators easily bought a small amount of radioactive material from a commercial source by telephone, the agency said.

The purchase was not challenged because suppliers are not required to determine whether buyers have a legitimate reason for acquiring such material and are not required to ask for an NRC authorization document when small quantities are purchased, the GAO said.

"We could have purchased all of the radioactive sources used in our two undercover border crossings by making multiple purchases from different suppliers... using false identities, and had all of the radioactive sources conveniently shipped to our nation's capital," the letter said.

See, this part of the article bothers me. If I wanted, I could buy certain radioactive materials commonly used into introductory physics labs over the phone from a company and have it sent to me through FedEx to arrive here the next day. For some reason, this part of the article looks sensationalistic.

This could, of course, explain part of...

Quote:

The congressional watchdog agency said the test was designed to examine potential weaknesses related to radiation monitors that have been installed at U.S. border ports of entry, the GAO said.

If it is stuff that you can buy from a scientific supplies catalogue, then its radioactivity would be fairly low and it wouldn't surprise me if they wouldn't set off the sensors (especially since you could block them with just a few inches of lead).

Jam it back in, in the dark.