A week after dressing down TSA for suggesting that Congress did not really mean for all air cargo to be scanned, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson followed up with a letter to DHS accusing it of trying to undermine congressional intent to fully scan 100 percent of all cargo — both air and maritime.
A terrorist operative hoping to use the flow of international commerce against us found his job all the more difficult because of the security programs which Admiral Peterman oversaw and directed.
The most glaring problem with the “100 percent” model is that it goes against the globally accepted consensus that a risk-analysis and layered approach is a far more comprehensive and effective security model than the concept of “100 percent scanning.”
Global resistance is growing to a looming Congressional mandate that will require the scanning of all containers entering U.S. ports by 2012. The World Customs Organization (WCO) released a new report on Tuesday analyzing the 9/11 Bill’s requirement for 100% cargo scanning – a measure that Le Havre University researchers found will have significant “technical and organizational difficulties.”
As the GAO report shows, C-TPAT is not perfect. As with so many areas of homeland security, there are still a number of challenges that must be addressed and improved. Most critical among them is the lack of systematic follow-up by Customs and Border Protection officials to ensure that full implementation of their security requirements are met before granting benefits. Anyone who reads this report, however, will be struck by the degree of improvement C-TPAT has undergone since it was formally adopted, as well as the sophistication of DHS’s overarching risk-based approach to security. It is the very opposite of the model called for by some critics, who want to replace this model with the so-called 100 Percent model.
As Chairman of the Safe Commerce Coalition, I’ve spoken to a number of audiences lately about the issue of cargo and supply chain security. I find myself often having to remind folks that when we stood up the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, we had a two-fold mission when it came to border security. First was to secure the borders. The second mission, which is sometimes forgotten, is to maintain the free and efficient flow of commerce and people.
We see the “100 Percent” debate playing itself out between DHS and Democrats on the Hill — in the areas of employee screening at our nation’s airports, the screening of air cargo, and the screening of shipping containers coming from overseas. In all these instances, Democrats have passed legislative mandates requiring DHS to implement the costly solution of 100% scanning. DHS has been correct to push back, and they should do so more forcefully.
The Heritage Foundation will host next week a forum on cargo security entitled Homeland Security and Inspecting Shipping Containers: Debating the Way Forward. Two of Security Debrief’s contributors will participate – former DHS Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson, who is also now head of the Safe Commerce Coalition, and Dr. James Carafano, who is the senior fellow for foreign policy, homeland security and counter-terrorism issues at the Foundation.
The 2004 Madrid subway attacks and the 2005 London subway and bus attacks demonstrate that the terrorists consider passenger rail and mass transit as preferred targets. The rising fuel costs for automobiles and congested air travel could logically push more passengers to rail throughout the course of the year and beyond. This is where DHS and DOT should place their emphasis.
Buried deep within extensive testimony given by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner Jay Ahern on April 2 before the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee was a brief announcement that CBP has decided not to pursue the Global Trade Exchange cargo shipping risk assessment program. GTX, previously known as the Secure Freight Initiative before that name began being used to describe overseas scanning programs, had ended up being the Spruce Goose of cargo security – oversold and too big a concept for liftoff.
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