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Improving cargo security: the technology is here, but where's the urgency?

© Alan Kotok

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) issued a report on 25 October 2002 that outlined the lack of overall progress in the U.S. to prepare for another terrorist catastrophe. Some of the report's more startling and unnerving findings cover the need to secure America's surface-freight cargo facilities, which the CFR group says have been largely neglected in favor of air transportation. This lack of progress in securing our cargo facilities is all the more perplexing, given that the technology for tracking cargoes is readily available and in widespread use.

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CFR is probably the most influential private research organization in the field of foreign policy. It publishes the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs, and sponsors meetings and research on key policy issues. The membership of the task force studying homeland security shows the clout it wields. Former senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart chaired the group, which included two former secretaries of State (George Schultz and Warren Christopher), two former chairs of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (William Crowe and John Vessey), former FBI and CIA director William Webster, Nobel laureates, leading academics, and other luminaries.

Senators Rudman and Hart are no strangers to this topic. In February 2001, a full eight months before 11 September, a similar high-level commission they chaired studied the state of homeland security, and issued a report warning against the rising terrorism threat and the need for better preparations. Many of the report's ideas found their way into homeland security legislation introduced after 11 September 2001. See our story, Starting Now to Develop a Strategy on Cyber-Terrorism, http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/us_t... .

Shipping containers an inviting target

The task force highlighted the glaring vulnerability to terror attack of our surface freight transportation facilities. The report says, "only the tiniest percentage of containers, ships, trucks, and trains that enter the United States each day are subject to examination-and a weapon of mass destruction could well be hidden among this cargo," which should raise more than a few concerns. And coming one week after the testimony of CIA director George Tenet before the Senate select committee on intelligence warning against an imminent terrorism attack, the new Rudman-Hart report makes for chilling reading.

The report focuses on shipping containers as a likely target for terrorists. Shipping containers are metal containers, 40 feet (12.2 meters) long, that have made inter-modal shipping possible. With inter-modal shipping, transportation companies can load up to 30 tons of cargo into these containers, ship them on ocean vessels, then transfer them to rail cars or trucks after unloading, without opening or disturbing the items in the container. This advancement has increased the speed and efficiency of surface cargoes, and made inter-modal shipping economical for many shippers. About 90 percent the world's general freight move in these containers, and some 21,000 containers arrive at American ports everyday.

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