Issue #43
Last Update December 24, 2005
National Maritime Security by David Katz In the first Presidential debate, Senator Kerry raised the issue of port security. Pointing out that 95 percent of the cargoes entering the US are uninspected, he faulted the Bush administration for doing little in the three years since 9/11 to ensure that dangerous materials that might be of use to terrorists are kept out of the country. One of the television networks, as a test of port security, managed to smuggle depleted uranium into the country by shipping it as regular cargo without it being detected en route or at the port of entry, a test that the Department of Homeland Security labeled as “flawed”. The US Maritime Security Expo held this month at the Javits Center in New York gave support to Kerry's charges, but also highlighted developments by industry and the DHS that promise to make our ports safer.
Speakers at the Expo agreed that there was a balance to be struck between making our ports safer and tightening security so much that international commerce grinds to halt, with severe economic consequences for our nation and the world. All also agreed that more could be done than was currently being done. Curt Weldon (R. Pa.), of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, pointed out that we have already paid for and developed equipment for the military for communications, area defense and threat detection that could be of significant benefit for homeland security. He advocates a technology transfer between the military and our first responders (police, fire departments, port security and health agencies) that would give these first responders capabilities they do not currently possess, but which the military has had for years.
Asa Hutchinson, Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security of the Department of Homeland Security, defending against the charge that 95 percent of the containers entering our ports are not inspected, agreed that we are only inspecting 5 percent, but maintained that targeting information allows the “right” 5 percent to be inspected. Pointing to the 24-hour manifest rule, that requires that manifests be available for inspection 24 hours prior to the ship's docking, he asserted that analysis of these manifests, and the kinds of certification information that accompanies them, allows attention to be focused on those shipments originating from locations and shippers most at risk for being compromised by terrorists.
A presentation by Stephen Flynn, Senior Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, supported Mr. Hutchinson in part. Our maritime networks and systems, he points out, were developed to be open, efficient, low cost and reliable; security was not a concern. The maritime shipping facilities and information must now be retrofitted to provide the level of security we now feel is necessary. The cost of security measures is an important consideration; providing 100 percent security in a single measure is unaffordable, but five 60 percent solutions strung together, each modest in cost, would give 99 percent protection. He criticizes the Bush Administration, however, for reluctance to fund port security. Administration policy, he stated, was to fund protection of borders and domestic targets; port security was left to the private sector, port authorities and local and state governments to fund. The lack of coordination and low level of expenditure that this policy implies has left our ports and distribution facilities vulnerable. Mr. Flynn's solution to port security is to have everyone in the system certify origin with private and public verification (a cargo birth certificate, in effect). Then there must be some form of smart box-tracking of position, vetting before loading (including radiological and bioagent screening and data storage), tracking of ships from point of load to point of discharge, and spot checks on arrival. This would allow potentially dangerous anomalies to be singled out for detailed scrutiny, maximizing safety while minimizing cost and time delays.
The exhibits at the Expo were heavily slanted toward area control (intrusion detectors, barriers, armored guard shacks and access control devices), inspection and certification (chemical/biological/radiation detectors, remotely guided platforms for cameras and other devices, drive-through truck scanners, container locking and sealing devices), crisis management (decontamination equipment, mobile command centers, emergency power supplies, communications networks), and data acquisition and analysis (object tracking systems, data encryption systems, manifest analysis systems). These products will provide the technological underpinning for implementing the recommendations of the various Expo speakers.
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