Security Briefs - Nov. 21-27
The Latest Headlines:
- Terror Insurance Bill Gets Final OK
- Bush Signs Homeland Security Bill
- FBI Issues Maritime Alert
- Con-Way Signs on for C-TPAT
- Bush Signs Homeland Security Bill
Terror Insurance Bill Gets Final OK
In a Tuesday news conference, President Bush signed a bill protecting insurers from terrorist-related claims, the Associated Press said.The bill will cover 90% of claims, up to at most $90 billion, with the insurance companies kicking in the rest. The new law does not retroactively cover the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, AP reported.
"Builders and investors can begin construction on real estate projects that have been stalled too long and we can get our hard hats back to work," Bush said during the televised event.
Bush Signs Homeland Security Bill
President Bush signed the hotly debated bill creating the Department of Homeland Security, the Associated Press reported Monday, officially beginning the largest government reorganization since World War II.The department will begin taking shape on March 1, when the Secret Service, Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service and a few other agencies merge their staffs and budgets, AP said.
The department is expected to be fully operational by Sept. 30, 2003 – more than two years after the terrorist attacks that forced it into existance, AP reported.
Bush opted to stay with Tom Ridge, the current homeland security adviser, to head the new cabinet department. Bush has also tapped Navy Secretary Gordon England and Asa Hutchinson, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration to play prominent supporting roles in the new department, AP said. Transport Topics
FBI Issues Maritime Alert
The FBI said that terrorists may try to attack maritime shipping operations, possibly using scuba divers to place explosives on vessels, the Associated Press reported Friday.The warning was in the agency’s weekly bulletin to state and and local law enforcement groups, and a federal source said it is not attached to any information about specific targets, AP reported.
Trucks work in and around ports, carrying intermodal containers off ships to warehouses and factories inland and goods to ports for shipping overseas.
The alert was the second one issued last weekweek by the U.S. government. Nov. 20, the State Department issued a worldwide alert for Americans, urging caution at places like clubs, restaurants, hotels, resorts, beaches and schools, AP said. Transport Topics
Con-Way Signs on for C-TPAT
Con-Way Transportation Services Inc. said Thursday that it has completed and submitted its application to the U.S. Customs Service to sign up for the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, or C-TPAT, and has joined a similar program in Canada.The two programs are part of the Free and Secure Trade Highway Carrier Application Process, which is designed to tighten security at the U.S.-Canada border, but still keeping cross-border trade moving.
Carriers enrolled in the program are pre-approved for border crossings, and as such, are allowed to pass without being stopped at border checkpoints.
The agreement will allow all of Con-Way’s less-than-truckload subsidiaries to pass through the border easily, the company said.
Con-Way is the trucking division of Palo Alto, Calif.-based CNF Inc. CNF is ranked No. 4 on the 2002 Transport Topics 100 listing of the largest trucking companies in the United States and Canada. Transport Topics
(Click here for the full press release.)
