Current US security measures need to be analyzed for effectiveness

In the wake of 9/11, the government undertook a number of initiatives to strengthen the security and resiliency of the supply chains that power the U.S. economy, safeguarding against both manmade and natural catastrophes. After a decade of experience in trying to keep the free flow of peoples, goods, services, and ideas moving in the face of terrorist threats, it is past time to reevaluate how effective these measures have been and how they can be improved. The Heritage Foundation has recently published a number of Issue Briefs analyzing the Obama Administration’s policies and congressional proposals on homeland security. These writings cover port security, the global supply chain, the Department of Homeland Security’s operations and grant programs.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Department of Homeland Security program to strengthen port security has gaps that terrorists could exploit to smuggle weapons of mass destruction in cargo containers, congressional investigators have found. The report by the Government Accountability Office, being released Tuesday, assesses the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), a federal program established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to deter a potential terrorist strike via cargo passing through 326 of the nation's airports, seaports and designated land borders. Under the program, roughly 8,000 importers, port authorities and air, sea and land carriers are granted benefits such as reduced scrutiny of their cargo. In exchange, the companies submit a security plan that must meet U.S. Customs and Border Protection's minimum standards and allow officials to verify their measures are being followed. A 2005 GAO report found many of the companies were receiving the reduced cargo scrutiny without the required full vetting by U.S. Customs, a division of DHS. The agency has since made some improvements, but the new report found that Customs officials still couldn't provide guarantees that companies were in compliance. "The bottom line is DHS has basically passed the buck on port security by allowing shipping companies to police themselves with almost no oversight," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "By not lifting a finger to ensure these companies are doing what they say they are doing, DHS is yet again shirking its primary responsibility. So many years later, it is shocking that DHS still cannot get its act together."

Similarly, the USCG FY12 budget includes requests for recapitalization and sustainment of surface and air assets (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2011, p. 73). Program reductions include the decommissioning of one 378-ft High Endurance Cutter and three 179-ft patrol coastal vessels. The Commandant’s testimony further explains the status of aging fleet of USCG cutters and aircraft, and the deterioration of the 22 USCG’s ability to execute maritime security missions without adequate funding for replacement and sustainment of maritime resources. The Commandant, Admiral Papp, also describes the USCG’s overarching budget priorities. • Rebuild the Coast Guard • Sustain Front-line Operations • Enhance Maritime Incident Prevention and Response • Support Military Families These budget priorities, especially the first two, emphasize the USCG’s need for maritime resources to insure sustainment of operations in the maritime domain. Finally, taking a step back to the strategic level, the overarching maritime security framework, established by the policies and responsibilities outlined in the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, do not link to the budget process at the department level to ensuring adequate funding is available for agencies responsible for executing the new policies or requirements. This disconnect, combined with the depressed economic conditions in 2012, emphasize the need for smart spending in terms of maritime resources.

For the issue of effectiveness, interviewees were asked to indicate whether they found a specific security requirement effective in respect to security and other organizational performance. Security and other organizational performance were studied separately, to find out what other observed impacts of the implementation of security requirements were, apart from security improvement. For security matter, it is worth mentioning that some of the interviewed organizations consider security only as anti-piracy and anti-terrorism measures. It could be explained by the type of organizations. For example, security incidents such as pilferage or smuggling are not frequently observed onboard tankers. Besides, the possibility of the piracy or terrorist attacks is so small that some organizations do not have any statistics. Because of these facts, some interviewees could not give clear answer for the question about security improvement. However, they provided their evaluation of security effectiveness based on the crisis and incident exercises, conducted in their organization, as well as on the general company security culture. Among measures which were not considered as effective for security improvement, interviewees identified the following requirements: to install SSAS, IAS, to display SIN, to keep records of activities and CSR, and to obtain ISSC. However, all respondents agreed that the mentioned requirements can be useful for other purposes, such as post incident investigation, customs clearance, and navigation. Other requirements from the list were considered as effective. However, respondents admitted that some of them did not enhance security inside the organization but could help to improve public security, and they were implemented mostly because of their mandatory nature.

Data Documentation In order to compare the current. strategy of security inspection and the proposed differentiated one, data of inspection time of the three stages need to be input to the simulation model. The current inspection practice, as mentioned before, could be divided into three parts: passive inspection, active inspection, and manual inspection. The purpose of passive inspection is to detect the neutron and gamma ray emission, and since it uses highly efficient equipment, the average time span for the passive inspection process is approximately 45 seconds for each container. (U.S. Treasury Advisory Committee, 2002) According to the logic of the current inspection method, if a container fails passive inspection, it is automatically sent en route to active inspection. The active process uses a gamma radiography device to non-intrusively obtain the 3D image of what is inside a container. The time span for the completion of mapping the image, analysis, and judgment averages at 3 minutes. (U.S. Treasury Advisory Committee, 2002) Finally, if a container fails the previous two phases of inspection, it will be manually checked for the failure reason. Such intrusive inspection usually takes approximately 2.5 hours to finish. (Sharpe, 2005)

The results of all three cases showed that the waiting time before manual inspection queue was significant and it is the major bottleneck of the whole system. When a more aggressive security strategy is adopted, manual inspection under current inspection framework becomes the major time consumer in the system. Compare to the current inspection procedures, the differentiated inspection strategy does have a better performance according to the paired-t confidence interval analysis. Hence, more importantly, the proposed inspection framework enjoys greater flexibility when the security environment changes toward unsatisfying 16 direction. It is unnecessary to involve much more containers in the manual inspection thus reduce the time cost and facilitate the container traffic. It is believed that the proposed new differentiated inspection framework for security inspection of sea cargo will make significant contribution to a much more secure and efficient sea cargo transportation system.

It is noted that a large number of containers still need to undergo security inspection at the port of destination, which is the final defense line for stopping the possible transportation of WMD or other contrabands. As a matter of fact, however, with security protocols already in operation, cases in which certain containers do not undergo security check remain to an extent that cannot simply be ignored. What is more, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of security inspection in the maritime sector remains to be a difficult problem for management and policy makers. This is because the desired performance of our inspection system is to ensure a higher level of security which does not seriously impede container traffic. All of the abovementioned concerns, when combined, necessitate our contemplation of the question from a scientific point of view.

Where C-TPAT seeks to identify all those involved in the shipping process to identify which containers may be subject to less scrutiny, the Container Security Initiative (CSI) focuses on CBP's own evaluation and examination of containers in foreign ports prior to their being laden on vessels bound for the United States. Once the potential for terrorist attacks on ports was identified, it was immediately apparent that efforts that could only identify weapons and other hazardous shipments once they arrived in United States ports did little to alleviate the risks to those ports, the supply chains they embody and the surrounding communities. CSI takes security efforts overseas and relies upon the cooperation of foreign ports and governments. Although all containers are subject to "screening"' to determine if further examination is necessary, in 2005 only five percent (5%) of all containers entering U.S. ports - those containers identified as high risk - were actually examined by CBP officials. Of those examined containers, the examination actually conducted may occur at the foreign port of loading under CSI or upon arrival in the United States.