Shaheen Announces Border Security Project
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26–Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and an ad hoc group of officials from the Northeast have received a $200,000 grant for a wide-reaching border security initiative that scans containers before they enter the country, the governor announced Tuesday.
Sitting next to Gov. Angus King of Maine, Shaheen asked her fellow New England governors to support a pilot security initiative that monitors all packages at their points of origin. Called Operation Safe Commerce, the process tracks containers throughout the supply chain process with sensing and tracking technology.
Shaheen is working with the so-called Operation Safe Commerce Partnership, which is headed by the Transportation Department’s Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, Mass. The group consists of representatives of Osram Sylvania, a Hillsboro-based electric company, as well as U.S. Customs Service, Border Patrol, immigration and crime-fighting officials from New England and Canada.
The grant, supplied by the Defense Department Technical Support Working Group, will pay for a pilot run of the process that will record and share tracking and sensor data from shipments along one route from Canada to New Hampshire. The pilot will test technologies such as global positioning systems, internal and external sensors and nodes that track the containers.
Shaheen described the Operation Safe Commerce system as “a whole series of measures that include looking at the point of origin of the cargo” as opposed to checking it only when it arrives. Containers, she said, would be sealed and paperwork would accompany them through the supply chain.
“The idea is to provide for strict accountability from point of origin, push out to make sure who is transporting cargo is who they say they are,” she said. “This is not a one-shot or magic bullet. It is a series of measure that checks cargo at every stop.”
Such solutions, proponents say, would not slow down shipping. And they would not cost as much as costly X-ray devices. Checking containers before, instead of after, they are shipped potentially saves time because much of the cargo that is shipped around the country comes from known sources, and therefore only unknown cargo would be checked.
A white paper on the project states it will “demonstrate that the movement of freight across international borders can be streamlined while security is advanced.”
“I know everyone here has worked hard on improving trade,” Shaheen said to her colleagues during a breakfast gathering in Washington that wrapped up the four-day annual meeting of the nation’s governors. “The real goal is to improve security, but to do it in a way that makes borders more efficient. All of us who have traveled to Canada know that you will not make the 5,000-mile plus border safer by putting more agents along the border.”
Shaheen explained that as governor of a state with a foreign border, she was approached by Coast Guard Commander Stephen Flynn, a security expert on the Council on Foreign Relations, after the Sept. 11 attacks. “He had been studying the idea of pushing out security to the point of origin of shipping and coming up with a tracking system and creating accountability at all points along the way,” she said.
Flynn has written articles describing ways that Osama bin Laden could ship a biological weapon into the United States in a sealed container.
Shaheen said she agreed to report back to the other New England governors when they meet this summer, after the pilot project is completed.
“Obviously we haven’t put money into our borders for many, many years,” said Charles Tretter, the executive director of the New England Governors’ Conference. “Now 9-11 has exacerbated the situation. Fortunately, the president did indicate he’s putting more money into borders.”
Michael Vlachich, Shaheen’s special assistant for policy, pointed out that Shaheen was on the first trade mission to Canada after Sept. 11. “While there she met with Prime Minister ChrŽtien and ambassador Cellucci, who supported Flynn’s approach,” he said. “This is very important, because New Hampshire is one of the most tradingest states in exports.”
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
