Q&A: US Port Security Before and After 9/11

What did port security mean to the maritime industry before the September 11 attacks? Are enough measures in place today to keep U.S. ports safe? Listen as Peter Tirschwell, senior VP of strategy for UBM Global Trade, as well as a weekly columnist for The Journal of Commerce, discusses the topic of port security and the changes it has undergone over the last 10 years with JOC editor Dana L. Brundage.

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Q: Peter, there's been a lot of reflecting this past week among Americans after learning of the death of Osama bin Laden. I wanted to ask you about how the attacks of September 11 affected port security in this country. We've seen a lot of changes over the past 10 years and you’ve been writing about this industry for a long time. Can you give us a visual of what port security was like pre-attacks versus now?

Peter: Indeed bin Laden being killed has caused a lot of reflections about the last 10 years. Prior to "9/11", port security didn't really exist in the way it does today to the extent the way that the U.S. was interested in what was coming into the country. It was for customs duty purposes because we had to collect duties on imports. It was for trade enforcement as we were interested in counterfeit items coming in and other banned commodities, turtles from the south China Sea or whatever it was and narcotics. The most extensive, what you could call port security measures were really around things like narcotics and the customs service maintaining vigilance over items that shouldn't be brought into the country for various reasons.