One of the things that The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection
and TSA are working on is a trusted shipper program, which addresses those issues that
pertain to freight forwarders and cargo shippers dealing with shipping companies that they
know and if they are dealing with a shipment from an unknown shipper then the basic protocol
is to provide additional screening for that cargo, whether it’s going on a cargo plane,
but especially if it’s going on a passenger plane. Same thing applies to global postal
mail, so if it’s going on a passenger plane, additional security should be provided and
if it’s going on a cargo plane. One of the partnerships that we have been working on
is an initiative which looks at the legitimate of sale and transfer of chemicals, but those
that may be precursors for improvised explosive devices. And this initiative is called Global
Shield and it is focused on either the diversion of those chemicals or the improper use once
they have been delivered as intended, the diversion and use of those in some type of
bomb. There are two areas where we’ve made some good progress, the Operation Global Shield
is one of those where we’ve had some success in identifying some suspect shipments and
also some very good intelligence for the intelligence and law enforcement communities around the
World. The second, equally important, is something called ICAO, the International Civil Aviation
Organization, which is based in Montreal, it acted last fall. It was a declaration of
aviation security with 190 member states from around the World agreeing to baseline civil
aviation standards and screening, which is a major step forward.
