CBP considers limited applications for CSDs, Ahern says

CBP considers limited applications for CSDs, Ahern says The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is considering several types of limited applications for an electronic device to detect terrorist or criminal tampering with ocean containers, even though serious questions remain about whether the technology is reliable enough to use on every shipping box that enters the country, according to a high-ranking official.
   U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a DHS agency, has been evaluating container security devices for several years, and plans to open up the process to more vendors when it soon publishes specifications for the devices. The standards are expected to help technology providers by clearly laying out the agency’s expectations for technical and operational performance that previously were less defined and led to disagreements with at least one company about whether the devices were ready for prime time.
   CBP put the issue of electronic seals, or container security devices, on the backburner after claiming that the devices had a false alarm rate in the stressful marine environment of more than 1 percent. Officials say the threshold needs to be below that level to prevent the agency from squandering its manpower at ports of entry to check what would amount to hundreds of alarms per day.
   Speaking at the Maritime Security Expo in New York last week, CBP Deputy Commissioner Jayson Ahern elaborated on previous comments that the agency may be willing to lower the bar for fault tolerance for specific trade lanes or programs where a CSD might help detect attempts to breach a container or trailer.
   He repeated that CSDs might be useful on cross-border truck traffic from Mexico because the risk of drug smuggling is high and the devices could actually help reduce the existing inspection workload.
   Other potential applications being looked at are in-bond movements, the Secure Freight Initiative and the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism.
   CBP’s in-bond system allows goods to transit the United States from the port of entry without officially entering U.S. commerce in order to help businesses get their goods to destination without delay. Importers that take out a customs bond can move their cargo to an inland port without waiting for official clearance that all duties have been paid. In-bond shipments represent anywhere from 30 percent to 60 percent of goods received at some ports of entry.
   The Government Accountability Office has reported that CBP lacks sufficient controls on these shipments to track their whereabouts, thereby potentially increasing security risks. CBP does not use any information beyond that on the manifest to update its targeting system for in-bond shipments because useful information from the customs entry is not available until arrival at the destination port for formal entry.
   A CSD that can wirelessly communicate the container ID number and any tampering could potentially help in tracking that universe of containers, Ahern suggested.
   The Secure Freight Initiative is a pilot program underway in a half-dozen overseas ports to test the feasibility and benefit of scanning and checking radiation in all sea boxes moving through a particular facility to the United States. CBP will report to Congress in April on the results of the mini scan-all program.
   Ahern said the CSD could play a useful role in protecting the boxes after they move through the automated inspection process. Containers often do not move directly to the vessel and a CSD could notify of a potential smuggling attempt while the container rests in the yard.
   CBP officials are more comfortable using the CSD in that circumstance because the original inspection has proven the integrity of the shipment, but do not feel it is worth putting CSDs on all containers when there is no assurance that something was not slipped in the box at the point of origin prior to installation of the locking device.
   “I would submit it’s not wise to put them on all 11 million boxes when you’ve got no confidence in security at the point of stuffing,” Ahern said.
   Officials have indicated on several occasions that CSDs would be a likely option for highly compliant importers in the C-TPAT program, who have undergone vetting of their supply chains to meet high security standards for themselves and their suppliers.
   A 1 percent alarm rate equates to a “substantial amount of inspections to resolve,” Ahern said. But “in a much smaller universe of smaller risk lanes you could assume a greater false alarm, or nuisance alarm level.”
   Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has expressed dissatisfaction with DHS’s approach so far towards CSDs. In a letter to Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff last month he reiterated that Congress expects container security devices to be certified for use on all containers.
   Differing interpretations of the SAFE Port have clouded how the CSDs are to be used in U.S. cargo security programs. The law called for DHS to develop minimum cargo security standards by earlier this year, and many industry and government officials read the law to mean that DHS has the option of studying CSDs and whether to include them as part of those standards. But Democratic lawmakers insist their intent was that cargo security standards mean container security devices.
   To speed up the process, lawmakers included a provision in the recent 9/11 Implementation Act, stating that if DHS doesn’t have container standards in place by April 2008 then it has to mandate that all containers have an ISO-compliant high-security mechanical bolt seal. ' Eric Kulisch