First it was air. Then came ocean. Now it's rail and truck.

Although the terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, took advantage of lax security on passenger flights, government authorities since then have focused much of their attention on the potential risks of cargo shipments. Officials have repeatedly expressed concerns about how few shipments entering this country are physically inspected with an eye toward security. Those concerns were among the reasons behind the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). They also led Congress to pass laws mandating specific actions to improve cargo security.

Not surprisingly, federal authorities initially looked at air freight, including the practices of carriers, freight forwarders, and shippers. Next to come under scrutiny was ocean shipping. With more than 6 million sealed containers arriving annually at U.S. ports, the potential for danger seemed clear. Security programs, including the "known shipper" requirement for air cargo and the Container Security Initiative (CSI) for overseas inspection of U.S.-bound ocean shipments, were quickly put in place.

Exporters and importers knew that those and other early security programs were just the beginning. Now, nearly two years after the attacks that prompted those measures, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced proposed regulations requiring advance notification of shipment details for every international movement. Whether their shipments move by air, ocean, rail, or truck, every shipper, forwarder, customs broker, and carrier will now come under the security net that Customs is casting over a widening area of control.

Earlier this year, customs authorities shocked the trade community with their proposals for requiring advance notice of every import and export shipment, regardless of transportation mode. Those so-called "strawman" proposals were deliberately written in a way that would provoke heated discussion, said one customs official speaking off the record. And that they did—public hearings and written comments were animated, to say the least, as shippers let the agency know that some of the proposals would be costly and virtually impossible to comply with.

Customs officials did take to heart those comments as well as recommendations from Canada's Customs and Revenue Agency. They also took into account input from the Commercial Operations Advisory Committee (COAC), an advisory board representing shippers, carriers, customs brokers, and customs lawyers, which devoted hundreds of hours to developing recommendations that would be more workable for all stakeholders.

On July 23, CBP published its final rules for advance notice in all modes in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. No group got everything it wanted, but the pain of compliance will not be quite as sharp as had been anticipated. It's not possible to go into all the details here—the proposals plus the agency's response to public comments ran more than 130 pages long. (The full text can be accessed at CBP's Web site, www.cbp.gov.) But some of the most important provisions for shippers include the following:

• Imports— Detailed shipment information must be received by Customs as follows: For air and courier shipments, four hours prior to arrival in the United States (or four hours before takeoff in some nearby regions); for rail shipments, two hours prior to arrival at the U.S. port of entry; for ocean shipments, 24 hours prior to lading on a vessel at the foreign port; and for truck shipments, 30 minutes prior to arrival in the United States for approved participants in the Free and Secure Trade (FAST) program, and one hour prior to arrival for all other motor carrier shipments.
• Exports— Detailed shipment information must be received by Customs as follows: For air and courier shipments, two hours prior to scheduled departure from the United States; for rail shipments, four hours prior to attachment to the train engine to cross the border; for ocean shipments, 24 hours prior to the vessel's departure; and for truck shipments, one hour prior to arrival at the border. These are the latest acceptable timeframes, and CBP is encouraging filers to submit data as early as possible to avoid bottlenecks and delays.
• Deadlines are based on when Customs receives shipment information, not on when information is sent, as originally proposed. The sender must "verify system acceptance" of data.
• Data for all reportable imports and exports must be submitted electronically. The rules also specify who is eligible to file and which data elements are required. This is fairly straightforward for imports, which have long been subject to automated filing. Developers of the new Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), moreover, will build a framework for reporting security-related data into the new system. Exports, though, will have to wait for a while. That's because the rules require exporters and their agents to use the commodity module of the U.S. Census Bureau's Automated Export System (AES). But under current law, Census can't make AES filing for all exports mandatory until mid-2004. (Electronic filing for commodities that require export licenses and munitions licenses, however, becomes mandatory next month.) Census also must develop new modules that will allow carriers to submit shipment data, since AES doesn't include that capability now.

As the AES situation attests, information requirements mandated by security laws are fast outstripping the government's ability to collect that data. But the DHS has written the rules in a way that gives it the authority to force changes in information systems so it can get the data it wants, when and how it wants it. Improving data collection and analysis, in fact, has become a top priority for DHS Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security Asa Hutchinson. "Our goal is to inspect 100 percent of at-risk cargo," he told attendees at the American Association of Exporters and Importers (AAEI) annual meeting in June. Information technology, he added, is indisputably the key to identifying potentially dangerous cargo.

The proposed rules for advance shipment notice will require all participants in the international supply chain to produce, collect, format, and/or transmit shipment information—often information that they've never handled before—earlier and in a different manner than they have in the past.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. With support from Congress and the Bush Administration, CBP is expanding its influence or control over cargo security beyond its traditional bailiwick. The agency is not only getting more deeply entwined with the activities of other U.S. federal agencies, but it's also taking its proposals worldwide in a Herculean effort to protect the United States from further terrorist attacks.

Here at home, other federal agencies are turning up the heat on security, and CBP has stepped right up to help. One example is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is implementing strict controls over food imports out of fear that terrorists could use them to poison U.S. consumers. Currently, a joint FDA-CBP team meets twice weekly to work on data management issues, said Charles Bartoldus, CBP's director of border targeting and analysis, in a presentation at the AAEI meeting. "Where we want to get to is a targeting system [for at-risk shipments] that's built to support FDA, with joint rules building and being able to give information back to them," he said. "We want the goals and needs of FDA's program to be intuitive to our system."

In addition to FDA and the Bureau of the Census, CBP also is involved in security-related data-collection initiatives with the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S Department of Transportation, the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, and several other federal organizations.

Customs isn't limiting its role to the home front. The agency has taken its show on the road, urging foreign governments to join in the act. CBP's Container Security Initiative (CSI), for example, places inspectors at foreign ports worldwide. Although most foreign governments have joined the program when asked, CSI has created some diplomatic tension over sovereignty issues as well as raised concerns in Europe that it would create a competitive disadvantage for participating ports.

But CSI isn't the only international show in town. The Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), which so far had enlisted U.S. importers, their service providers, and U.S. ports to help improve cargo and data security, will soon be open to foreign manufacturers. That will move CBP much closer to its goal of getting all parties in the international supply chain to participate in its anti-terrorism efforts.

A look at the daily newspaper makes it clear that terrorism is not just a U.S. concern. Law enforcement officials in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Indian sub-continent have made numerous arrests of would-be terrorists in the past year—and the United States wasn't always their intended target.

That's why U.S. Customs has been successfully preaching the gospel of cargo security worldwide. CBP played a key role in the World Customs Organization's recent adoption of 27 general guidelines for risk assessment. Those guidelines, when implemented by customs authorities in WCO member countries, will help to harmonize the collection and analysis of cargo-risk data around the world. Not only will that help U.S. importers and exporters protect their own country, but it will also make international trade safer for their trusted trading partners.