When TSA first announced its implementation policy we became aware of the ramifications or I should say three senior staff members did. President Peter Lamy immediately saw huge opportunity while all I could see was increased costs! In spite of my skepticism, Peter went ahead and brought two experts on board; Jeremy Vergara and Zachary Zemby. The three of them, with me as an observer, tackled the issues and challenges with schoolboy enthusiasm. Today, our screening facility is a credit to Peter’s vision and tenacity to get the job done. CII also owes a huge amount to both Zachary and Jeremy for their thousands of hours of research and subsequent implementation of the plans.

As the rest of the industry continues to be at sixes and sevens praying the TSA will postpone D Day, the CII teams in Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York are ready to pick up the mantle once August 1st arrives. There is no question our screening facility will become a major source of revenue/profit in the years ahead.

I think it is about time the silent majority started speaking up at how ridiculous and time wasting most of these measures are that we are forced to adhere to, and for what? I could not believe President Bush when he rejected Israel’s post 9/11 offer of helping us establish a model based upon their decades of experience in counter-terrorism procedures. There was one stumbling block for America, the appointment of Mineta as Transportation Secretary. This fool of a man hell bent on promoting political correctness to the point of lunacy, would not accept the precedent that profiling and looking for the bombers instead of the bombs is the only sensible base from which to operate an effective security program.

We have allowed $billions upon $billions to be wasted on in the main non-performing, poorly paid and thinly educated individuals seeking the glamour of a job in uniform where their presence places unbelievable stress upon most ordinary citizens. It doesn’t matter whether it is the officer assigned to make a surprise visit upon a forwarder or that “jerk” who barks the order, “Remove your computer from its carrying case.” It is all about attitude and in my opinion, I have yet to meet a nastier bunch of people.

That being said, I actually truly question the value of the TSA in its present form. We are about to be forced to have every piece of freight expensively x-rayed. What good will that do? Here we have experienced in the last week some airport employee bundling illegals into a service lift and to “freedom” at LAX airport. How many illegals made it into the country before some were caught? What is to say that could not happen in reverse? A bomber given access to move freely within the tightly controlled security zones of cargo and passenger terminals. CCTV is an effective tool in surveillance. That is what we need. It is a fact we have to also watch the people who are assigned to watch us! In this instance, Security cameras everywhere would have acted as an effective deterrent before some scab of an airport employee even took the chance.

In the seven years the air cargo industry has been in high security mode, not one bomb or terrorist device has been discovered that would have led to a plane blowing up on the ground or in the air. Over the past fifteen years expensive sensitive equipment and machines to make products that in the hands of the wrong people pose a true threat to America’s security have been allowed to be freely and legally exported to rogue nations, especially China. Hey Mr Bush and your successor, focus on stopping that and you would be giving America’s security a huge boost.

What makes a cargo only aircraft so special to be able to move unknown shipper freight? A cargo plane blowing up after takeoff could wreak more havoc than any passenger aircraft. Someone with a pair of nail scissors or a 4 oz bottle of aftershave in his briefcase is not a possible terrorist. An eighty year old American grandmother from Boise, Idaho flying to visit family in New York should receive a total green light to even bi-pass security altogether rather than the possibility of being subjected to the nonsense of TSA officers choosing her as the random person to be strip searched. It is plain insanity.

If we were able to profile exporters just as El Al does, our cargo security would improve immeasurably. Right now it is pure humbug the processes forwarders have to go through to and comply with that convinces me this bureaucracy has gone absolutely bonkers. Thanks Mineta. Yes, I know you did a runner a couple of years back to rest your weary geriatric bones (and too old to travel) in a lazyboy recliner in Northern California, but your legacy is ruining our lives.

The great thing about this change is the feedback has been so positive. I will concede Peter Lamy and I are a couple of conservative “old farts” and we are a little slow at reading the writing on the wall. Maybe we hung in for too long with FedEx and UPS, but when our personal lives are all about longstanding friendships, this trait crept into how we do business. Peter is a little younger than me and still retains a hugely youthful vision about life and business. For me, an old salt, sometimes I readily admit I am an anachronism. Thank goodness, CII is run by a committee chaired by Pete, with only one vote coming from the old goat! Decisions are made after thoughtful argument and consensus of opinion. With that said, perhaps Pete and I should be in the White House and not running a small business. Only kidding! We could never match what Ms. Palin and her husband bring the table on the Washington Beltway.

It was a little courageous to make change at the peak of the silly season but we believe the timing was right in spite of and your comments of support have been most encouraging. Thank you, indeed.