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C-TPAT and Cargo Security: Sea Change

In an effort to prevent terrorists from turning container and cargo ships into weapons, Customs is counting on big business to goad partners into improving security through initiatives like C-TPAT.

That's because the global shipping industry has evolved for speed, reliability and efficiency—not security. Consider this: An importer can move a container holding 30 tons of material from Asia to the West Coast for as little as $2,500. That's about 4 cents a pound. "It makes the postage stamp look a little overpriced," Flynn quips.

U.S. companies built empires on this system, moving manufacturing offshore and slashing inventories. They came to view a certain amount of cargo theft and drug smuggling the way department stores view shoplifting: not at all desirable, but nevertheless a cost of doing business. [See also DHS, Drug Interdiction and Common Sense.] Only about 2 percent of incoming containers are physically inspected by Customs. "We basically decided that given the benefits of the system, it wasn't worth the hassle of going after all these activities," says Flynn, a senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In post-9/11 waters, of course, the risks are different than routine theft and drug smuggling, and protecting against them is a daunting task. APL, one of the world's largest shipping companies, estimates that an end-to-end supply chain can involve up to 25 partieseach with their own facility, staff and procedureand 35 to 40 shipping documents per container. "For a ship carrying 3,000 containers, more than 100,000 documents need to be managed to some degree," says Earl Agron, director of port and container security of APL. Because of this tremendous complexity, no one has ever tried to secure the shipping supply chain from end to end.

That is, until now.Uncle Sam Steps InOn Sept. 24, 2001, former chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration Robert Bonner was sworn in as the commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service, now known as the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection. "Terrorism is our highest priority, bar none," Bonner told the Chicago Tribune shortly after his appointment. The war on drugs was effectively over.

Since then, much of the attention in the press has been on Customs' controversial 24-hour manifest rule, which requires companies to submit shipping information to Customs 24 hours before goods are loaded onto a vessel headed to the United States. But most of what Customsnow lodged within the Department of Homeland Securityhas done has been of a kinder, gentler sort.

The Container Security Initiative (CSI), for instance, is a program in which Customs officers are placed in ports around the world to search high-risk cargo headed to the United States. The program is voluntary, but an FAQ at the Customs' website promises that "in the event of a terrorist attack using a cargo container, CSI ports would remain in operation because they have a security system, CSI, in place."