Readers of this blog from outside the United States may or may not be aware of the political brouhaha about port security dominating the nightly news here.

In a nutshell, the furor concerns the purchase of a port security company by a Dubai-owned company from the United Arab Emirates. Dubai Ports World would end up managing operations at several shipping ports in the United States.

People are still sorting out the facts about the exact nature of Dubai Ports World's role. First reports suggested that Dubai Ports World would be in charge of security at the ports. Naturally the idea that a foreign-owned company -- of any country -- would be in charge of security had people up in arms.

Slowly more information is coming out about exactly what Dubai Ports World would be in charge of. More recent reports suggest the role is much narrower and does not involve security at all, but rather, puts them in charge of routine operations.

I think you can fairly say many average citizens are against the deal, based on what little they have heard so far. Whether we have been hearing complete and accurate information is another matter altogether.

In the past several days, the nature of the debate has broadened, with lawmakers and news analysts noting that the bigger issue is that ports in the U.S. are still insecure. The belief is that not enough has been done by the U.S. government to improve port security. Only 5%, maybe 10%, of containers are inspected before arriving in the United States.

So what does all this have to do with RFID?

The RFID connection is that the port security debate has once again raised security technology to the forefront.

A while back in this blog I noted that RFID had the potential to be able to detect contents of shipping containers, secure containers from tampering, and otherwise make our ports more secure. See earlier posts here and here.

RFID is being raised once again, in several contexts. First, why aren't we using more technology such as RFID to make U.S. ports more secure? Second, could the management of our ports by foreign companies allow the technology to fall into the wrong hands (which seems to me a stretch, because anybody can buy any technology today as it is)?

I'm afraid there are no answers about RFID at this stage -- just lots of questions. Let me point you in the direction of a few recent news reports discussing the role that RFID could play in making ports more secure and the broader issue of port security:

• Debate Rages Over Port Security Technology

• Securing cargo - High-tech tracking devices among new tools for ports

• Dubai's Two Faces