Investigators call cargo security program unreliable

The Homeland Security Department's primary cargo security program has not yet been proven to target high-risk containers and has missed multiple deadlines for improvements, despite millions of dollars spent on it and several audits, government investigators say.

Senate and Government Accountability Office investigators are calling for Homeland Security to verify and improve the effectiveness of the Automated Targeting System, saying the risk is too great that a weapon of mass destruction or other contraband might be smuggled into the United States via an ocean-bound cargo container.

Shortfalls in the system undermine the agency's claim that it is identifying all high-risk cargo, investigators say. The shortfalls also raise doubt about the effectiveness of other critical Homeland Security programs, such as the Container Security Initiative, which places U.S. Customs agents at foreign ports, and the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, through which private shipping companies voluntarily agree to improve the security of their supply chains.

A recently released GAO report disclosed that Customs and Border Protection has missed multiple deadlines and has not put key controls in place to provide "a reasonable assurance" that ATS is effective. "Because this program is key to our nation's cargo container security inspection program, these issues have to be resolved as soon as possible," said Richard Stana, GAO's director of homeland security and justice issues.

Stana noted that the Automated Targeting System is used to help Container Security Initiative ports determine which cargo to inspect, and helps determine benefits for C-TPAT participants. "C-TPAT and CSI are very heavily dependent on ATS working properly," Stana said.

ATS is a collection of rules and software algorithms that helps Customs and Border Protection officers evaluate manifests for each of the 11 million containers coming into the United States each year. Values are assigned to each container, and those deemed high risk are pulled aside for further inspection.

It was developed in the late 1990s to identify cargo containing drugs, but morphed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to become the premier program for identifying cargo with weapons of mass destruction. Between 6 percent and 7 percent of containers -- about 750,000 -- are now identified as high risk, said CBP spokeswoman Leah Yoon.

The Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report last week making a series of recommendations to improve ATS. The report noted that ATS failed to identify a container used to smuggle Chinese immigrants into the port of Long Beach last year. The container was shipped from a CSI port by a member of the C-TPAT program.

A subcommittee aide said CBP officials have not responded "expeditiously enough" to address the problems. The full Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing today on the Greenlane Maritime Cargo Security bill, which would require ATS improvements.

Yoon said CBP is taking steps to address the concerns raised by the GAO and Senate investigations. For example, she said the agency is developing a simulation environment for ATS and developing a process to include the results of detailed container inspections into the system's algorithms.

CBP has contracted with Mitretek Systems, a private consulting firm, to independently review the system, Yoon added. She said the company completed a review last year, but she did not know the agency's timeline for implementing the review's recommendations.

She declined to comment on what else CBP is doing to improve the system, saying the matters are law enforcement sensitive.