Pros And Cons Of United States Container Security

After September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, nations around the world began to look at their security systems to protect not only their people but the goods that they trade. The world’s ports took front and center stage in these security reviews. “Approximately ninety percent of the world’s cargo moves by ship” (Roach, 2003, p. 342). Containers are the primary way to move cargo via ship, and many of these containers that run through the world’s ports are never inspected. Nations around the globe have created initiatives to combat seaport security against a terrorist attack, but there is always talk of a significant threat for a terrorist attack on many of the world’s largest ports. Governments around the globe have created

The United States Customs Service created the Container Security Initiative (CSI) in January 2002. “CSI addresses the threat to border security and global trade posed by the potential for terrorist use of a maritime container to deliver a weapon” (US Customs and Border Protection, 2014). CSI has created a system that works to ensure that all containers that are brought to the United States are identified and inspected at foreign ports should they show a potential threat of terrorism. United States Customer Border Protection officers work with host countries customs officials to establish the security criteria to identify the high-risk containers (US Customs and Border Protection, 2014). These officials do not have the authority to inspect the containers, but instead, they use a “non-intrusive inspection (NII) and radiation detection technology to screen high-risk containers before they are shipped to U.S. ports” (US Customs and Border Protection, 2014). CSI is located in fifty-eight ports and prescreens over eighty percent of maritime cargo that shipped to the United States (US Customs and Border Protection, 2014). Many countries joined the United States by working with the new CSI approach and exchanging their own customs official to complete the same tasks at various ports throughout the world. The European Union did not agree with this Initiative and even considered fining some of its members for joining the United States on this crusade. The European Union was concerned that by signing an agreement with the United States Customs that it would create competition between their