Page 10: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 2, 2005)

10 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News

Government Update

The U.S. Department of Homeland

Security recently released its draft White

Paper on a National Cargo Security

Strategy. The Department is seeking stakeholder feedback. The vision is for "a system for supply chain security that mitigates the evolving terrorist threat and facilitates the free flow of global commerce in order to ensure the physi- cal and economic well being of the

United States and its trading partners."

The White Paper is a long-belated and somewhat half-hearted attempt to mend fences and appear to be moving forward, while expending little new capital. The paper runs on for nine pages, offering no new ideas and making few commit- ments. It has the appearance of an uneasy political compromise between feuding federal agencies.

The one clear commitment is found on page eight, where it says the Department "will, as a short-term step, mandate the use of high security mechanical seals on all in-bound containers." There is, as yet, no official government standard as to what constitutes a high security mechanical seal.

While there is a recently-developed

ISO standard on this topic, it is unclear if qualifying seals are being produced in sufficient numbers to meet the projected need.

The remainder of the White Paper is vague, talking about enhancing the physical security of the supply chain, leveraging federal resources, pushing out the border, and working with the international community without really explaining how. The document itself is what the State Department would call a "non-paper."

It is marked "Draft". It bears no letter- head or other indication that it is an offi- cial DHS document. It was distributed at a forum sponsored not by DHS, but by the Homeland Security Institute. It talks about seeking industry feedback, but provides no points of contact or addresses to which comments can be submitted. The term "plausible denia- bility" comes to mind.

The concept with which DHS is labor- ing is — at its heart — fairly direct, although the execution is extremely dif- ficult. There are three basic elements: (1) the authorities must know what is entering the system, where entry is

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Circle 250 on Reader Service Card

Cargo Security Strategy

Dennis L. Bryant, Senior Maritime

Counsel at the law firm of Holland & Knight, Washington, D.C., is a contributing editor of MR/EN.

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