Chertoff: Small shippers have limited ability to avoid inspections

Chertoff: Small shippers have limited ability to avoid inspections    Small importers who need to share space in a container are more likely to have their cargo inspected no matter how much information they provide in advance, because border security officials will not have confidence that each piece comes from a secure source, U.S. Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday.
   U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers use ocean carrier shipping manifests and computers to research the history of the overseas shipper and the particular shipment to determine which ocean boxes reach a certain risk threshold and require an X-ray type inspection. Companies can reduce their risk score and the likelihood of time-consuming inspections by investing in security measures that go beyond minimum accepted practices through the voluntary Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program.
   But consolidated shipments that include goods from unknown shippers will always be considered at higher risk for terrorist infiltration and therefore will receive extra attention from border security officers unless industry can come up with a way to provide accurate information about the split shipments, Chertoff told the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore.
   “I think that freight forwarders who consolidate large numbers of different shipments are always going to be in a different category than shippers who deal with regular known shipments that have been based on what is produced in factories, for perfectly obvious reasons,” Chertoff said, according to a copy of his speech.
   “I would put the burden on the industry. If you can convince us that you have a way of creating a level of trust and kind of a ‘registered traveler’ for these kinds of goods, we are certainly open to listen.”
   Chertoff explained that the Secure Freight initiative floated last year is designed to gather the kind of detailed shipping data from the point of origin that will allow the Department of Homeland Security to better identify trusted shippers eligible to avoid most inspections.
   The Department of Homeland Security plans to push industry in the next couple of years to develop databases that can capture this information, sift out relevant data and present it to the government in a format that is easily analyzed, he said. DHS officials have previously said that a pilot project could be started before the end of the year. Built on top of that initial security check will be measures to verify that no tampering has occurred during transport.
   DHS has been criticized for taking more than 18 months to develop a regulation requiring secure, mechanical seals on all containers, but Chertoff said the slow pace of some regulations is born out of a desire to make sure any rules actually deliver the intended security benefits. Secure seals are already a minimum requirement for C-TPAT shippers.
   Chertoff is scheduled to visit China and Hong Kong as part of his tour of Asia. On Saturday he will receive a demonstration at the Port of Hong Kong of an automated cargo inspection system that can take images of containers, detect for the presence of radiation, and capture vehicle and container identification numbers as trucks enter the terminal. The system is operated by SAIC and Hutchison Port Holdings, the world’s largest terminal operator, and has gained attention in recent weeks as a potential technology for capturing data on 100 percent of shipments without slowing down throughput.