The U.S. Transportation Security Administration has executed its interim final rule (IFR) on airfreight security and enabled entities other than airlines to screen cargo transported on passenger planes.
Final Rule for the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, which was introduced in September 2009, created the basis for the TSA’s certified cargo screening program (CSSP). As a way to expedite the screening mandates outlined in the 9/11 Act, the CSSP allows entities that have met rigorous standards to inspect freight. Prior to this, only airlines were authorized to screen belly-hold cargo.
Now the TSA is taking this concept one step further and allowing airfreight entities to apply to become certified cargo screening facilities (CCSFs). As designated CCSFs, cargo companies must adhere to stringent chain-of-custody requirements and “implement a multi-layered security program that includes appointing security coordinators, strict access controls and vetting of key personnel, TSA officials said.
It’s an approach the TSA’s Jim Fotenos endorses wholeheartedly. Speaking exclusively to Air Cargo World, Fotenos explained that his organization hopes to parlay its success with the CSSP into other ventures. Like always, however, the TSA will solicit feedback from its international partners to work toward its goal of screening all international inbound cargo on passenger planes, he stated.
What’s more, Fotenos maintained, the TSA is also looking at the feasibility of achieving 100-percent cargo screening on all U.S.-bound flights by the end of the year.
“We have asked industry for feedback on a potential Dec. 31, 2011 date for screening all international inbound cargo on passenger jets,” he told Air Cargo World. “TSA is carefully reviewing and considering comments from the industry before determining how to move forward.”
These TSA monkeys couldn’t catch water in a rain forest. The most incompetent, violating agency in our gov’t. Completely ineffective and they need to be dissolved.
This is a complete farce. Just last week it was reported that TSA cannot account for 900.000 airfield credentials so now they are going to turn cargo screening over to contractors? TSA was created because Congress and Bush decided that contractors weren’t reliable enough to use for passenger screening.
Over 60% of air cargo on airliners is not inspected.
With this gaping hole wide open for the past year, why are they focusing on groping and strip searching passengers? This is a corrupt and failed agency and a Congressional investigation and special prosecutor are needed to get this abomination corrected.
Comment edited for content.
Totally agree with the first two posts. The best thing that could ever happen to help relieve the national debt and lift the onerous burden imposed on all types of aviation everywhere, this includes all the international flights and airlines having to conform, comply, pay for the sorry excuse for security, is to abolish the TSA permanently. They have over 75 thousand of these robotic goons wasting everyone’s time and money with their incompetence and causing ever burgeoning increases in cost to both aircraft operations and the traveling public. Homeland ‘Insecurity ‘ should be next on the “now extinct’ list. A fear based , fear induced society, begets more entanglement in the web of deceit and outright fabrication of the truth by those imposing this fear through their ever tightening grip on establishing control over everyone and everything.
Air Cargo security was never a safe bet. Three and a half years ago the US Congress mandated that by August 1st, 2010, all cargo loaded on passenger aircraft in the US needed to be screened for explosives. No technology existed then, nor today that could accomplish this gargantuan task credibly and in toto. As the responsible party, the airlines had no capacity to handle the volume of cargo this would entail. As a result, the responsibility was arbitrarily transferred to the supply chain, unreliably manned by cheap warehouse labor in a cumbersome process called CCSP, The system is not to be trusted.
Strange … this TSA initiative deals with belly freight on combination carriers … yet the picture is of a main deck loading on an all cargo carrier. Duh?