U.S. and Hong Kong (2009)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Acting Commissioner Ahern Testifies on Strengthening the Security of Containerized Security

(04/01/2009)

Statement of Jayson P. Ahern, Acting Commissioner,
U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
Department of Homeland Security before the Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

Introduction

Chairman Price, Ranking Member Rogers, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, it is a privilege and an honor to appear before you today to discuss the work of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to both strengthen the security of containerized cargo entering our borders and facilitate the flow of legitimate trade and travel.

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Secure Freight Initiative (SFI)

The Secure Freight Initiative (SFI) pilot scanning project is another component of this layered enforcement strategy for protecting the nation. Integrated scanning systems, consisting of Radiation Portal Monitors (RPMs) provided by DOE/NNSA and NII imaging systems provided by CBP or the host nation, are used to scan containers as they move through the foreign ports. Data from these systems is integrated utilizing optical character recognition (OCR) technology and provided to CBP officers who determine if the container should be referred to the host nation for secondary examination prior to lading.

Meeting the legislative requirements of the SAFE Port Act, the first three SFI pilot ports (Puerto Cortes, Honduras; Port Qasim, Pakistan; and Southampton, United Kingdom) became fully operational on October 12, 2007, and are attempting to scan 100 percent of U.S.-bound maritime containers (total U.S.-bound container volume at these three ports from October 12, 2007 to March 11, 2009 was 255,424). Furthermore, CBP and DOE expanded the deployment of scanning equipment to one terminal in Hong Kong, recently began operations in Port Busan (South Korea), and will soon be operational in Salalah (Oman). CBP has also been working very closely with Pakistan Customs to expand the SFI model to Karachi, and we are hopeful that we can begin scanning containers from Karachi later this year.

SFI chose these initial ports because they present a unique set of challenges and provide diverse environments in which to evaluate varying options. While these are the deployments currently planned and anticipated, we are constantly assessing the priority of foreign ports and terminals that present the greatest opportunities to reduce risk through deployment of SFI resources and will adjust our deployment plans and schedule accordingly and keep the Committee informed.

Multiple reports have been submitted to Congress since October 2007, which outline the lessons learned through SFI, and another report will be sent to Congress later this month. The lessons learned from the SFI deployments in Pakistan, Honduras, Southampton and Hong Kong demonstrate that scanning U.S.-bound maritime containers is possible on a limited scale, focusing primarily on gate traffic (there is currently no proven technology which can address transshipped containers), however, results are based on scanning on a very limited scale. Scanning all 11.3 million containers that enter U.S. seaports from a foreign port presents significant operational, technical, and diplomatic challenges.

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