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Container Security: Who's In Charge?

Guest columnist Jim Giermanski takes issue - actually seven specific issues - with DHS comments on the role of technology in container security.

By James Giermanski

Page 3

Statement 5
"&following CBP's recent Request for Information on CSD technology, CBP will soon be testing the CSD technology provided by the most qualified vendors who participated. If this technology passes the laboratory testing phase, the devices will then be tested in real world operational environments."

Response
Again, it appears that Ahern does not even know CBP's long history of its RFIs and the money already spent on CSDs. In 2005, (two years after a system doing what CBP needs was demonstrated in the field) CBP released a Request for Information (RFI), an information-gathering and planning vehicle used by DHS. DHS used Johns Hopkins University to manage the RFI. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory released a letter dated November 8, 2005 for use by potential vendors. The letter stated in part, "The purpose of this request is to gather information to identify and evaluate available state-of-the-art container and trailer tracking devices suitable for in-bond shipments."
1. Sensing
a. The container and trailer security device must be able to electronically detect closing and opening of either door of the container/trailer. Monitoring the door status must be continuous from time of arming to disarming by authorized personnel.
b. Optionally, the system should be able to provide near-continuous tracking of the location of the in-bond shipment while transiting through the U.S.
2. Alerting
a. The device must monitor the sensors for conditions warranting a tamper alert.
b. Provide notification of all alerts or change in status events.
3. Data
a. The container and trailer security device must be able to record and maintain a digital file of all time-stamped alerts, armed/disarmed events, and other optional data such as container/trailer and device IDs&.

Then, two years after the government, itself, demonstrated that there was more to a smart container than just a smart door container, DHS still wanted a "smart door." DHS said that a smart door must remember how many times it was opened and when it was armed and disarmed. I asked DHS directly a month before the RFI was released why only smart doors constitute a smart container. The reply was: "We have to crawl before we can walk." Unfortunately, protecting the doors is not container security nor does it qualify as smart-box technology. I have witnessed and directed breaches of both containers and trailers without disturbing the locked doors. Even the March, 2005 requirements of U.S. importers who are participants in the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) mandated a seven-sided inspection of a container: "Front wall, left side, right side, floor, ceiling/roof, inside outside doors, and outside/undercarriage."
Then in 2006, DHS engaged two firms to develop a smart container. L-3 was one of those companies. It shared a $5 million plan "&to develop fully integrated cargo container security device to ensure supply chain integrity, automatically detecting threats that no other sealed cargo screening technology can discover in real time, including human beings, unauthorized entries or container breaches." L-3 completed its work. To this date, no standards or decisions on what a smart container should be have been released by CBP or DHS.
Another RFI was released in December, 2007 that required an industry response in February 2008. Ahern references this RFI in his statement to Congress. The December RFI, like the one two years before, was still focusing on "doors only" despite the fact that CSDs have long ago passed that low level of security. They are also inconsistent with and lag behind the progress of the private sector in moving away from doors-only detection and reporting. Since demonstrated in 2003, the private sector already had affordable technology that begins "at-stuffing" with the verification of contents and identification of the verifier, "all-sides" detection of entry and satellite communication and control through to destination, including the identity of the authorized agent opening the container. In fact, the RFI to which Ahern is referring was protested by an industry group as going backwards: In order to be compliant with the subject RFI, virtually all manufacturers and designers would need essentially to abandon their advanced system designs in lieu of what may be viewed in many cases as less capable technology and weaker designs. It went on to say: The specification of a single-purpose security device - managing door status only - severely limits the value of a CSD and increase vulnerability for undetected intrusion into the container. This is viewed by the CSDIA as a restricted and inferior security application, and as a cost that will only support compliance (ultimately) with a Government mandate. Other offerings, available today from a number of vendors, provide advanced technology that monitors cargo condition, location, status of discrete and high value packages virtually anywhere in the world.
In other words, CBP has been spending money appropriated to it in testing CSD technology since 2005 and is still at the "laboratory" stage, obviously still crawling. Why? One answer could be that it simply does not know what is already available, or what is already available is not from the favored companies, potentially linked to the Administration, or its leadership is intellectually challenged and virtually incompetent.