Flynn: C-TPAT not adequate to protect containers at point of origin
The U.S. government's strategy of using risk management techniques and intelligence to target containers and commercial trucks entering the country for inspection works well for detecting drugs or migrants, but not so well when the contraband is a nuclear bomb or radioactive explosive device, said security expert Stephen Flynn.
The difference is that revenue-producing smuggling operations are ongoing criminal conspiracies, whereas a terrorist only has to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction one time to be successful. That means that the government cannot assume that trusted shippers in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism who have demonstrated a commitment to implement strong internal security controls throughout their supply chain are low-risk and their shipments given less scrutiny because they are terrorist free, Flynn said.
'If I'm intent I can find somewhere along the supply chain to compromise it once. And it's helpful for me when the U.S. government has advertised that legitimate companies with big brand names are folks we don't do much inspection for,' Flynn said Monday at the American Association of Exporters and Importers' conference in New York.
Flynn amplified many of the themes presented last year in speeches, congressional testimony and his book, 'America the Vulnerable,' with extra detail on how to develop a cargo security regime that doesn't slow down trade, repeating his call for a 'trust, but verify system' for low-risk shippers.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection uses full-container gamma ray imaging machines and physical searches to inspect about 6 percent of ocean containers and about 12 percent of incoming shipments when trucks from Canada and Mexico are included. Industry and administration officials agree that inspecting 100 percent of inbound cargo is physically impossible because of the enormous volume of imports and would cripple the economy. CBP says it covers 100 percent of the universe of containers by screening commercial data from the manifest and other intelligence to determine the 6 percent of high-risk containers that need further examination. Many importers are attracted to C-TPAT because participation can lower their risk score and potentially reduce the chance that their shipments will get held for time-consuming inspections.
But critics of the strategy say manifest data is flawed because it comes from a third party transportation provider without direct knowledge of the container's contents and isn't detailed enough. Efforts are underway to develop a program under which importers would supply more transaction-level detail much earlier than the current standard of 24 hours prior to loading on a vessel in a foreign port.
Flynn, and others, have argued that terrorists are likely to exploit C-TPAT and port and vessel security programs in which government agencies target resources on suspicious segments of the trade and give a pass to companies once they have demonstrated compliance with security regulations.
'When I succeed at infiltrating the legitimate 95 percent of the universe I create a cloud of doubt in the American public about the universe and then we are back at the starting point,' because the programs won't be seen as credible and pressure will mount to scrap them for tougher security measures, Flynn said.
Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, repeated his call for the use of bonded third-party security managers to make sure (through the use of digital photographs are other methods) that proper security procedures are being followed at foreign manufacturing or consolidation sites where containers are stuffed, wireless tracking technology to monitor the container at intermittent point on its trip, and radiological and gamma ray screening of all containers at the port of loading.
CBP and industry officials say ports are not equipped to conduct higher levels of x-ray-type container imaging because of the time and space required to identify and line up containers for non-intrusive exams. But Flynn again endorsed a pilot test underway at Hong Kong International Terminal that is scanning every container as it passes through the entrance on trucks traveling at an average rate of 15 kilometers per hour. The system, developed by San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), combines gamma ray imaging, radiation detection equipment and optical character recognition technology to capture the container ID number.
The value of such a system, according to Flynn, is that in the event of a terrorist attack that originated in a container government authorities can replay a tape of the digital photographs at the loading point and images from the port and isolate the problem to a single supply chain, not to all of Hong Kong or all of Asia. That would give the government the confidence to quickly reopen ports to trade instead of shutting down commerce until all containers en route or in U.S. ports are inspected.
Flynn noted that the United States, along with foreign government and industry partners, could put gamma ray and radiation portals in every commercial cargo port in the world for about $1.5 billion. Last year he said such a system could be deployed for about $600 million to $700 million.
CBP has sent two teams to Hong Kong to observe the system being tested in Hong Kong, CBP Commissioner Robert Bonner said in a May 5 interview on the National Mall after attending agency exhibits as part of Public Service Recognition Week.
Bonner, who expects to soon receive an evaluation of the program, expressed skepticism with the concept.
'If you can figure out a way to do 100 percent inspection without slowing down in a significant way the movement of cargo, I'm happy to see it,' he said. Bonner questioned how the system could handle all the containers that are transshipped from other ports, as well. 'More power to them,' he said. He did allow that the addition in Hong Kong of optical character recognition technology to read the container number and relate it back to the manifest 'is an interesting concept.'
CBP is already deploying radiation portal monitors at border crossings and ports, as well as foreign ports assisting with targeted advance inspections through the Container Security Initiative, in which trucks drive through the detector array near terminal gate. The systems are set up separately from the gamma ray systems, which do not allow the same throughput.
Speaking to Shippers' NewsWire, Flynn explained that the Hong Kong model is still a form of risk management and not a scheme to inspect 100 percent of containers.
Customs authorities would not have to analyze every image that is captured, but could add resources to do so when the threat level rises or in the event of a terrorist attack, said Flynn, who has worked as a paid consultant to SAIC.
Flynn said the value of the system is not necessarily preventing an attack but indemnifying certain hubs from collateral damage associated with another terminal by allowing law enforcement to quickly identify where the security breakdown occurred rather. Otherwise, uncertainty about the origin of the container could force a massive shut down of most port activity for a prolonged period.
'The real breakthrough will be as we develop baseline data about what people say they are shipping and we look at those images and the radiation signatures' with software that can help targeting, Flynn told AAEI.