GAO identifies gains, deficiencies in CSI program

GAO identifies gains, deficiencies in CSI program U.S. Customs and Border Protection has increased the number of containers inspected in foreign ports but the Container Security Initiative still faces workforce and performance evaluation challenges, congressional auditors said Friday in a new report on maritime security.
   The border agency has strengthened CSI by increasing program staff, but still has too many workers in temporary positions for optimum examination levels of shipping boxes at foreign ports, the Government Accountability Office said. Permanent overseas staff results in better communication and cooperation with host governments, which results in fewer unnecessary examinations being conducted.
   There are 203 CBP employees assigned to the CSI program, including 125 permanent staff in 58 foreign seaports and 15 persons at the National Targeting Center outside Washington added since 2005. Ongoing challenges include determining how to optimize staffing resources as the CSI program expands and difficulty identifying sufficient numbers of qualified individuals to hire for the supply chain security program, according to the GAO. For example, only nine qualified people applied for 40 permanent positions and some CBP officers at CSI ports lacked targeting proficiency or local language skills.
   CBP has done a good job of adding personnel to the National Targeting Center to help screen manifest information and targeting scores, but still doesn’t have a formal process for determining whether better asset utilization can be achieved by relocating more CSI staff to the United States to review the computerized risk scores for containers, the GAO said.
   CSI is a part of the U.S. strategy begun in 2002 to push out the borders and conduct as many inspections as possible in overseas locations to catch any terrorist smuggling activity before a container is delivered to a U.S. port. The GAO documented in previous reports that a very small percentage of containers are X-rayed or otherwise inspected by partner governments. Even containers targeted through data analysis of shipping records and intelligence as high risk are mostly scanned upon arrival at U.S. ports, contrary to the intent of the program.
   The number of high-risk containers examined by host governments at CSI ports increased by 77 percent to almost 71,000 containers in fiscal year 2006 and to almost 137,000 in 2007, although much of that growth is attributed to the expansion of the program to more ports and not simply higher exam rates at existing locations. More than 11 million ocean containers entered the United States last year.
   CBP said participating foreign border agencies examined about 96 percent of the boxes referred for non-intrusive inspections. About 5,000 requests were not fulfilled because containers were already loaded on a shipping vessel. Host governments only denied inspection requests in fewer than 400 cases, the report said.
   CBP has spent $281 million on CSI during the past two years.
   The GAO said that information sharing between U.S. teams and host governments had improved, but levels of collaboration varied across CSI seaports. Other ongoing challenges include host country legal restrictions that prevent CSI teams from observing examinations by their host counterparts, and inability to access some containers because of the inherent logistical difficulty of finding and staging containers for an X-ray exam.
   Operational differences are exemplified by the fact that CBP interaction with customs counterparts is infrequent at nine CSI ports, six host governments restrict monitoring of non-intrusive exams, four governments prohibit CBP officials from using handheld radiation detection devices and three ports had equipment or computers that failed to work properly at all times. At six ports in two countries the government did not provide enough staff to assist CSI teams or host government officials were not available, which caused delays in examining cargo, CBP told the GAO. Overall, CBP reports high levels of cooperation with participating governments.
   Getting a handle on CSI’s effectiveness is still problematic, the congressional watchdog agency said, because CBP is struggling to develop good performance measures for CSI. Specifically, the agency has still not set minimum technical criteria for equipment, set annual performance targets or resolved confusion with calculating several performance measures.
   The report said, “CBP lacks a process for systematically gathering information on the equipment, people and processes used by host governments to examine U.S.-bound cargo containers identified as high-risk. Specifically, CBP has recently improved its process for conducting evaluations at CSI seaports by, among other things, testing the proficiency of the CBP officers who must identify high-risk cargo, and by introducing an electronic tool that enables CBP evaluation teams to systematically record their evaluative data.
   “However, evaluators do not always use the data collection tools as intended, which makes it difficult for CBP to ensure that evaluations are consistently carried out or that evaluative data are reliable for management decisions. Also evaluators do not always follow up on recommendations made in previous evaluation reports — so CBP cannot ensure that previously identified problems have been addressed. Also, CBP has not set minimum technical capability criteria for equipment used at CSI seaports as we recommended in April 2005 and as required under the SAFE Port Act for CSI and the 9/11 Act for future 100 percent scanning of U.S.-bound containers. Without such criteria and systematically collected information on equipment, people and processes involved in each host government's cargo, CBP does not have a sound basis for determining the reliability of the examination systems used at CSI seaports.”
   The GAO recommended that the Department of Homeland Security improve:
   ' Evaluations by maintaining evaluation data, ensuring evaluation teams follow procedures and monitoring the completion of recommendations from previous reviews.
   ' Collect better information about host government non-intrusive inspection systems to determine their reliability and whether mitigating actions or incentives are necessary to improve the security process.
   ' Enhance the CSI performance measurement process.
   CBP and DHS largely agreed with the report’s findings, although they said it is difficult to force governments to use the same technical standards as CBP does in the United States, that they are working through the World Customs Organization to build technical expertise in many foreign customs services and that existing performance measures address program functions. ' Eric Kulisch