Thread: Congressional Investigators Fault U.S. Port Security

May 25, 2005
This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBOESN069E.html

Congressional Investigators Fault U.S. Port Security
By Frederic J. Frommer
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) - Government programs aimed at keeping weapons of mass destruction from entering U.S. ports are flawed and could actually be counterproductive, congressional investigators found.
Reports by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, faulted both the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, or C-TPAT, and the Container Security Initiative, or CSI.

The Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, which requested the reports, will hold a hearing on the findings Thursday.

C-TPAT allows international shippers to get quicker clearance through customs in exchange for voluntary security measures. But the GAO said U.S. Customs & Border Protection's vetting process was not thorough enough. It found that only 10 percent of the certified members had been validated through an actual physical inspection by the agency; the rest had been certified through paperwork applications.
The lack of a reliable validation process, the GAO wrote, "potentially weakens the overall effectiveness of the other control mechanisms in meeting (the agency's) fundamental responsibility to ensure security of all cargo entering the United States."

The CSI program posts U.S. customs inspectors in foreign ports to look for suspicious cargo, which they then refer to the host country for further inspection. But the GAO found that 35 percent of shipments from these ports were not subject to inspection, and also concluded that the program lacked minimal technical requirements for inspection.

Given those conditions, the GAO wrote, the agency "has limited assurance that inspections conducted under CSI are effective at detecting and identifying terrorist weapons of mass destruction."

The congressional subcommittee, which conducted its own investigation, concluded that only 17.5 percent of high-risk cargo from these ports was inspected overseas.

AP-ES-05-25-05 1635EDT

Increased port security = increased costs for political campaign contributors.

You do the math.