Modern historians and policy analysts agree that 9/11 brought the post-Cold-War era to a screeching halt, marking the end of identifiable, monolithic enemies and replacing them with invisible ones scattered around the globe.

Photo Credit: James Tourtellotte

Aerial view of cargo operations at the port of Miami, Fla.

In a few short hours on the morning of September 11, the mission of the former U.S. Customs Service changed irrevocably from the interdiction of illegal drugs and trade regulation to preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States. And therein lay the challenge: to do this without choking off the flow of legitimate trade and travel that is so vital to the nation's economy.

Over the next two years, the inspectional forces of U.S. Customs, the Agricultural and Plant Health Inspection and Immigration and Naturalization Services, and the U.S. Border Patrol morphed into U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), becoming the nation’s primary border enforcement agency.

Terrorism prevention and trade facilitation

In the days immediately following the attacks, the United States government went to Alert Level One. Maritime operations remained at almost normal levels—the 9/11 hijackers had exploited our aviation system and immigration procedures, so that’s where Customs focused its attention.

Commercial traffic at land border crossings slowed to a virtual halt. Wait times on the northern border soared to 12 hours, and by September 14, some of the automobile plants, which depended on just-in-time deliveries, began to shut down.

On a normal day, more than a billion dollars in trade moves across the Canadian border. So the preview we were getting of 9/11’s economic consequences was pretty chilling. It quickly became obvious that we would need the participation of the private sector. Especially when the terrorists had shown that they were intent upon and able to use the ways and means of legitimate trade for their own ends.

Pushing out the borders

The CBP maritime security strategy is driven by the continuing threat of further terrorist attacks. In fact, the very first CBP post-9/11 maritime defense initiatives are rooted in one of oldest military tactics there is: push the border out.

CBP’s two most important post-9/11 initiatives—the Container Security Initiative, or CSI, and the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, C-TPAT—are based on that wisdom: if there’s going to be a problem, we will find and intercept it before it reaches our shores.

CBP first proposed C-TPAT in 2001 as a partnership in which Customs and the trade would work together to secure international supply chains from end to end. Today, it’s a reality, with more than 7,000 C-TPAT private-sector partners, up from seven in November 2001, when it was launched. They include major U.S. importers and represent more than 50 percent of imported goods, by value, that enter the country in maritime cargo containers.

C-TPAT participants develop and maintain secure supply chains from the foreign factory floor to the ultimate destination in the United States. In return, CBP offers C-TPAT shipments expedited processing and other benefits.

Among C-TPAT’s more important features is that participants pledge to work with their business partners and customers throughout their supply chains to ensure that those businesses also increase their supply-chain security.

Trust but verify

CBP has a network of specially trained supply-chain specialists who physically validate the commitments made by C-TPAT participants to assure that the latter have indeed completed the improvements they agreed upon. CBP strives to help C-TPAT participants continue to increase their supply-chain security measures, or, conversely, to take away C-TPAT benefits if CBP finds that companies are not honoring their commitments.

The Container Security Initiative pushes our border out by screening containers at foreign seaports before they are even loaded onto U.S.-bound ships. In January 2002, when Commissioner Robert C. Bonner proposed CSI, it was considered quite revolutionary because it assumed that foreign Customs authorities would agree to placing CBP inspectors on their territory to target and screen containers headed for the United States. Six months later, in June 2002, three countries had signed CSI agreements with the U.S. As of late August 2004— roughly two and a half years later—26 ports are operational in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. We are working to implement CSI in 10 to 15 more ports by the end of 2004.

And we won't stop there.

A truck hauling a seaport container passes through a radiation portal.

CBP has leveraged its significant authority in maritime security with the 24-hour rule, which requires shippers and ocean carriers to provide the agency with manifest information for oceangoing, containerized cargo 24 hours before that cargo is loaded onto vessels for shipment to the United States. The rule gives CBP time to analyze shipping information before the vessel sails to identify and eliminate possible terrorist tampering, but not enough time for terrorists to engage in any last-minute tampering.

The power behind the 24-hour rule derives from the Commissioner Bonner's legal authority to deny a permit to unlade cargo at a U.S. port. If the manifest information, which the CBP officer evaluates in combination with other sources of classified shipping information, doesn’t add up, CBP notifies the carrier that a container will not be given a permit to unlade in the U.S. If the carrier cannot unlade, he will not bother to load the container onto the ship. So if there is a security risk with that container or its cargo, it remains in the foreign port. In fact, CBP can deny a vessel permission to enter a U.S. port entirely.

The power source for C-TPAT, CSI, and virtually all CBP’s other anti-terrorism programs, for both trade and travel, is data—specifically, that which is supplied thanks to ground-breaking information technology that provides information to CBP personnel in nanoseconds.

We need information that pushes even farther back into the supply chain than the 24-hour rule does. Consider, for example, the movements of a container loaded before it arrives at a CSI location, which is where we start our offshore targeting. These containers can and do make stops long before they arrive at CSI ports, frequently in countries known for terrorist activities. In a scenario only too easy to imagine these days, one can speculate what could happen to that container and its contents during such a journey.

CBP’s new Advanced Trade Data Initiative is the crystal ball that builds on our other maritime security measures to get information that will give us greater visibility throughout the supply chain. Under this program, CBP will be able to review data from carriers, shippers, terminal operators, and other intermediaries. By performing analyses of 24-hour-rule data, entry data, and our automated targeting, we will be able to zero in on suspect ship movements and perform security inspections at the earliest point possible in the supply chain. This improved targeting will allow us to do an even better job of facilitating trade by concentrating our inspections only on cargo that indicates a need for it.

Technology, and not just information technology, is the backbone of the foregoing programs and more. We use non-intrusive inspection technology to screen cargo, and we are encouraging importers to use so-called “smart” technologies to enhance the security of their cargo throughout the supply chain.

Non-intrusive inspection, or NII, technology, is the post-9/11 equivalent of the drug-sniffing dog. NII technology increases CBP’s ability to detect conventional explosives, nuclear weapons, radioactive components, and other terrorist weapons.

NII technology includes radiation portal monitors, called RPMs, and gamma-ray and x-ray scanners. RPMs are 20-foot-tall gateways that look almost like the goal posts at either end of a football field. They function like giant Geiger counters to detect nuclear material before a terrorist can smuggle it through a port. Gamma- and x-ray scanners are whole-container versions of what airports use to scan luggage and carry-on bags at check-in.

Currently, all frontline CBP officers are also using portable, personal radiation detectors or PRDs, which resemble cell phones in size and appearance. PRDs can “sniff out” the components of nuclear bombs or radiological dispersion devices.

We’re also using radiation isotope identifier devices (RIIDs) at major U.S. seaports and land border crossings. These devices combine independent radiation sensors into one small, hand-held package that can detect and identify at least 17 types of nuclear and radioactive isotopes. They can thus “see” inside containers to pinpoint the source and nature of radioactive materials moving through a port of entry.

And we are encouraging the shipping industry to use smart-box technology so containers can “tell” us if someone has tried to corrupt them or their contents, because the best factory, loading-dock, and supply-chain security in the world is of little value if a terrorist can break open a container in transit to conceal a weapon. A smart box will register every opening of the container, both legitimate and unauthorized.

Smart containers must have at least two attributes: they must be securely sealed, and they must be tamper-evident. One way to turn a dumb box into a smart one is to equip it with a tamper-proof seal and install an electronic container-security device. The anti-terrorism benefits of smart boxes are clear, but containers equipped with this technology will also clear inspection more quickly.

International terrorism is mutating daily, but CBP is also evolving daily to meet this challenge. In our dual role as defender of U.S. security and the U.S. economy, CBP is accountable to all American citizens. Where some may see two conflicting goals, we see two complementary ones, and CBP is prepared to show the world how to accomplish them both.

“One of the primary reasons for implementing the maritime security strategy is to have a system that will prevent and deter exploitation by global terrorists. Another important reason is to have a sufficient security system already in place so that, if there is a terrorist attack involving maritime trade, the Department of Homeland Security, after assessing the situation, can restart the movement of trade to the United States without a prolonged shutdown of U.S. seaports.” — CBP Commissioner Robert C. Bonner-