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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 4

Statement 6
"The 9/11 Act amended the Safe Port Act by establishing that if an interim final rule was not issued by the Secretary of DHS by April 1, 2008, all containers in transit to the U.S. would be required to be secured by a bolt seal by October 15, 2008. DHS does not anticipate that an interim final rule will be issued by the April deadline. Therefore, effective 10/15/08, all containers will be required to be secured with the standard bolt seal."

Response
On June 24, 2005 all member countries of the World Customs Organization (including the United States) unanimously adopted the final Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade. In the Customs-to-Customs Pillar of the document is the following statement: "Maintaining cargo and container integrity by facilitating the use of modern technology is also a vital component of this pillar." This statement is further defined as advance electronic information (my emphasis added). In more specific detail, the WCO Framework calls for exporters or their agents "&to submit an advance electronic export goods declaration to the Customs at export prior to the goods being loaded into the means of transport or into the container being used for their exportation." Deborah Spero, the former Acting Commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, confirmed the importance of the WCO Standards in one of her press releases. "Adopted unanimously by the WCO Members in June 2005, the WCO Framework of Standards provides global standards for supply chain security for implementation by the public and private sector that will secure international trade supply chains and facilitate the movement of goods globally."
Finally, in 2006 the Congress passed and the President signed the SAFE Port Act. In it, Congress defined a container security device: The term "container security device" means a device or system, designed at the minimum, to identify positively a container, to detect and record the unauthorized intrusion of a container, and to secure a container against tampering throughout the supply chain.
But in 2007, we saw a continuation of DHS and CBP's apparent ignorance of and even in-house division on container security. In January 2007, W. Ralph Basham, CBP Commissioner, stated I'm saying that just because you have a device that secures the doors does not mean that the container is secure. It just means that the doors are secure and not the whole container. If technology is being developed it should be toward making sure the entire container is tamper proof. That is the challenge. Not just the doors on the container but the entire container&. But, on December 18, 2007, as posted in American Shippers NewsWire, Basham's boss Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff went to the other extreme by saying Therefore, effective Oct. 15, 2008, we expect to have the requirement in place mandating that all containers be secured with a standard bolt seal. In other words, contrary to the leadership of CBP who publicly announced the need for total container protection, and contrary to the mandate of Congress which said the Secretary shall issue a rule, and almost 6 months before the deadline to do so, and having already spent millions of dollars to develop a CSD, Secretary Chertoff decided that container security amounted to "dead-bolting" (my words) the container doors.