Homeland Security secretary calls for ‘worldwide security envelope’

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Thursday called for the creation of a "worldwide security envelope" in order to screen people and cargo traveling across international boundaries.

The security envelope would help governments and law enforcement agencies distinguish between people and cargo that have been vetted versus people and cargo that need to be more closely inspected, Chertoff said during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The secretary said he plans to discuss the idea with his European counterparts during travels next week. He said he hopes to move partnerships between the United States and European allies "to the next level."

"How do we move beyond simply partnering on an individual, episodic basis to building a true partnership that will operate in a mission-oriented focus where we will work together with our allies overseas to accomplish a mission that will secure the entire world?" he asked.

People and cargo traveling "within the security envelope" would be able to move more freely and rapidly across the globe because governments and law enforcement would have confidence that they posed no threat, Chertoff said. Those "outside the envelope," however, would be subject to "in-depth vetting that is necessary to make sure bad people can't come in to do bad things," he added.

For example, the government would know critical details about cargo being shipped inside the security envelope, such as what it is, who made it, where it came from and whether it had been tampered with while en route. Verified freight would be able to move more rapidly. This would help the U.S. government better know which of the thousands of containers coming into U.S. ports each day need inspected, Chertoff said.

The Homeland Security Department, however, has had difficulty getting European allies to share information in the past, particularly with regard to airline passengers. For example, homeland security officials spent months in negotiations before the European Union finally agreed last year to provide the U.S. government with passenger name records of airline travelers coming to or from the United States.

Chertoff said the United States and its allies need to build a global network in order to compete with a global terrorist network. He said he hopes the countries can move forward in the areas of screening people and cargo, technology compatibility and law enforcement cooperation.

"As we talk about a strategy to deal with global terror, we have to start to think about what is a strategy for dealing with a network. And clearly, one way to look at it is we have to create our own network to compete with that network and to combat that network," he said.

"What that tells us right away is that if we're going to challenge the kind of interdependence that a terrorist network thrives upon, we have to be able to confront the network everywhere it operates," Chertoff said. "And that means we have to be able to function internationally and do it in partnership with the overseas allies."