In November, 2001, at the urging of the US, new maritime standards were introduced in order to increase safety in all three areas, export ports, on the sea lanes, and import ports.

Some enhancements :

1. X-Ray machines on all cruise ships.
2. New security cameras and restricted areas.
3. Stricter certification programs for foreign ships.
4. Placing all local law enforcement for our local ports with the US Coast Guard so they could better coordinate efforts.
5. Inspecting every container coming into the US. - Today, 2/3rd's of containers are inspected at the foreign port before leaving. This is an international effort.

In Transent, all containers will have "smart locks" on them, which will show whether they have been tampered with.

In our ports, $556 million has been budgeted for X-Ray machines which can scan a 40 foot container in less than one minute. They also receive a 96 hour notice from each ship coming in, and the Coast guard analyzes the threat possibility on each ship, and is regularly checking for containers without proper smart lock technology.

This is a small slice of the efforts being taken to make sure ports are safe.

Any specific questions ?