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Release Date: October 17, 2006
Washington, D.C.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Associationof American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America
Secretary Chertoff: Well, thank you, Juan Manuel, for that wonderful introduction. And thank you for inviting me to address you at this luncheon conference. I know I occupy that very dangerous position between you and the lunch meal, so I'm going to move as quickly as possible. But I also will allow some time for questions and answers, because I think you probably have some things you want to get off your chest and talk to me about.
I'm pleased that you do recognize that our approach with respect to the issue of security is one that tries to be focused on risk and focused on balance. And that doesn't mean that we always opt in favor of security at all costs, nor does it mean that we're not prepared to require that there be some cost for security. The trick is to find the right balance, recognizing that we cannot give a guarantee for everybody in every place at every moment against everything, and also recognizing that we do not want to break the system that we are trying to save.
Now, I've had an opportunity to speak here at the Chamber of Commerce before. In fact, every time I come into the building, I envy it, and I wonder whether there is some way I can take it for myself. That was a joke. We don't do takings in my Department. But more seriously, I want to thank the Chamber for its ongoing support and recommendations on a whole host of fronts, including on the very important and still pending issue of immigration. I want to thank the Chamber for your stewardness and participation in the North American Competitiveness Council, which is an effort led by the Commerce Department under Secretary Gutierrez, and which has been an important way for us to receive your input and expertise on issues affecting trade, commerce and competitiveness across North America.
Of course, the entire Latin American region is one of the country's most important and historic trading partners. We want to make sure that the trade and commerce we all depend upon, from across this entire region, continues to flow freely across all of our borders, but we also recognize that to ensure that free flow of commerce, we have to be able to secure our borders and secure that commerce so that we do not face the possibility of the kind of attack that would disrupt our economic life.
So I'd like to talk a little bit today about how we achieve this goal, balancing security and commerce and prosperity, working together in a spirit of partnership, common purpose, and in adherence to a common set of principles.
Let me lay out the principles first. I begin by saying, as I said a moment ago, that we cannot break the system we are trying to protect. And that means that as we evaluate the security measures that are appropriate, we have to make sure that they operate within a context of free-flowing people, trade and travel. Nor do we necessarily want to lay the heavy hand of government on relationships or on processes that are well established, and we don't want to stifle the ingenuity of the business community in tackling many of the security problems that we do face.
We understand, as you do, that we are not in the business of risk elimination, because nothing can eliminate all risk. We are in the business of risk management. And that's why an example I like to use is the call that I sometimes hear for opening and inspecting every container that comes into the country. Those who make that argument obviously overlook the fact that to do so would very rapidly cause long lines of ships that would be sitting outside of our ports waiting as we manually opened every container. And in short order, that would be the end of our ports. We would have succeeded in destroying the very thing we're trying to protect.
For the same reason, we don't strip-search everybody who gets on an airplane. There's no question that if we did that we would be able to increase the level of security, but we would also increase the invasion of privacy and ultimately destroy the airline industry. So this issue of balance is an important ingredient in what is a sensible security strategy.
So how do we define risk? Well, we look at threat, we look at vulnerability, and we look at consequence. And we balance all three in assessing overall risk. We take an analytic approach to how we apply our resources to reduce each of these elements of risk and to do it in the most cost-effective fashion. And, as important, we recognize that because the federal government does not own all of the assets or employ all the people who work, we have to do this in partnership. It cannot be by micro-managing or simply by mandating. It has to be by working with the skills and ingenuity of the private sector, which is, after all, a great strength of this country. The reason this country triumphed in the Cold War was because we didn't run the country in a top-down old Soviet-style fashion where you had central planners mandating everything. That approach was tried and failed when Mikhail Gorbachev began to roll back the Iron Curtain.
So what we have to do is find a way to work with the private sector, but build the proper set of incentives, regulations and laws to optimize the way the private sector operates, and also to make sure that you in the private sector can be assured that when you do make investments in security they'll be made across the board. You will not have people who act as freeloaders on your security and who don't properly internalize the cost of their own security.
One of my arguments is there's a very strong business case for security. You have assets and you have business processes that you have spent a lot of money on. If you're publicly traded companies, your shareholders expect you to protect those processes. And so it is very much in your interest to make sure that you are, in fact, properly secure in your investment.
Now, how can we help you with that? Well, we can help you, first of all, by giving you a sense of what are reasonable and best practices in doing that security. A lot of that is derived through our National Infrastructure Protection Program, which is going to be working with the 17 economic sectors, through coordinating councils, to get a sense of what works in each of the sectors as best practices.
Some of them can be through market-based incentives, which can help direct you in terms of the kinds of investments that will maximize the security for your particular sector of the economy.
There is a place for some intelligent regulation. At the administration's urging, Congress passed a measure in the appropriations act which the President signed a couple of weeks ago that does permit us to do performance-based regulation of the chemical industry so that we can focus on those hazards which are the highest threat to communities and make sure that everybody is performing at a baseline level. And, again, our approach, as we've said again and again, is not to micro-manage or mandate very specific approaches -- to lay out performance measures after working with the industry and understanding what the business is, to create proper incentives, and only to use the stick when it's necessary to make sure that those outliers who don't want to do what they should do and don't want to make the proper investment are imperiling the economic health of the entire sector.
Now, with this general philosophy in mind, I'd like to talk a little bit about what we are specifically doing with respect to making sure commerce and travel continue to move freely across our borders.
Well, one of the things we have to do is, of course, we have to screen to make sure bad things do not come into the country. And, of course, our principle concern in terms of things coming into the country, from a national security standpoint, are weapons of mass destruction.
This past Friday the President signed the Safe Port Act, which institutionalizes and strengthens many of the measures we are already taking to secure global commerce entering and exiting from our ports. Our general philosophy is to, again, working with the grain of the system and not against it, build as much protection as we can, not only at our border, but even outside of our border overseas.
And we basically use two approaches. One approach is to use intelligence-based screening that focused on high-risk cargo that we should be worried about or that we don't have assurances about, and then look at that cargo, in terms of more intensive inspection, while not necessarily interfering with the flow of cargo that we do have a high degree of confidence in, either because we're participating in programs like NEXUS and SENTRI that have trusted shippers, or because we know enough about the track record of a particular cargo that we have a confidence level, that we have no threat there.
The second effort we take is, of course, to use mechanical scanning devices, or automated scanning devices, so that every container, or every element of cargo, goes through some kind of a scanning process to identify the possibility of radioactive material or a nuclear device. And this combination of layers gives us optimal security, but is capable of doing it in a way that does not reduce the throughput.
But it's not enough just to do it within the country. We want to do it overseas, as well. And that's why our Container Security Initiative is active at 50 overseas ports, including many across Latin America, such as Brazil, Argentina, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and the Bahamas. What this lets us do at this point in time is work with our foreign counterparts to screen and, where appropriate, inspect 80 percent of the container cargo coming into this country from overseas at the overseas port before it actually gets loaded onto the container ship. That is a big step forward in pushing our security boundaries out, working in partnership with our foreign allies.
With respect to the automated scanning, by the end of this year, 80 percent of the containers that come into the U.S. will be going through radiation portal monitors, and by next year, we're going to be close to 100 percent. And by the way, this percentage will apply not only to containers coming by sea, but also those coming over land, as well. Again, a significant layer of protection against a weapon of mass destruction.
But we also recognize that here, again, if we can move some of this to ports before ships are loaded, that's going to give us even an additional measure of protection. And so we look forward in the near future to working with some of our foreign partners in building a process for automated scanning and automated x-raying of containers from foreign ports, even before they get on ships destined for the U.S.
The ultimate vision at the end of the day is not only to protect the United States but to protect the world, to take the maritime shipping network and have it run through a series of automated screens for radiation and for x-ray that will protect the entire world against the movement of radioactive material and weapons of mass destruction.
This is one part of a global strategy which the President has recently signed with President Putin, and which we are pursuing worldwide in tackling what is probably still the highest consequence threat to mankind, which is a nuclear weapon or a radiological weapon.
Now, again, as part of this intelligence-based screening, of course, a critical element is information. And that's why we're going to be working with the private sector to collect more commercial data and information about container movements through our Secure Freight Initiative, and, again, to further increase the layers of protection with respect to those materials of potentially huge-consequence impact -- weapons of mass destruction. We are launching a Securing the Cities program first in New York and then in other cities to conduct radiation-based screening on the pathways into the city so that we can have additional rings of protection in our largest urban areas, and all the while we intend to continue, with Congress' endorsement in the latest legislation, to advance our key trusted shipper programs like C-TPAT and our border facilitation programs like FAST, SENTRI and NEXUS.
At the same time, we want to continue to do what we can to use our ingenuity to promote trade and prosperity in this region. Through the Security and Prosperity Partnership, which is our joint effort with Canada and Mexico, we want to work together to synchronize our defense against threats from outside the continent as well as internal threats or natural disasters.
This partnership is a commitment to a joined vision for a stronger, more secure and prosperous region, based on the premise that our security and our economic prosperity are mutually reinforcing and must be attained together.
We've already made significant progress under this partnership, developing work plans and timetables for protecting all of our countries working together, while ensuring that legitimate travelers and cargo continue across our borders.
Among other things, over the past few months, we've worked with our Mexican counterparts and with our colleagues at the Department of Energy to conduct facility assessment visits to a number of energy facilities are both sides of the border. This flows from a recognition that because of our interdependence, we have to work together to protect our infrastructure, including, in particular, energy infrastructure, and the SPP provides an important framework to help us achieve this goal.
I'd also like to emphasize that recently Secretary Rice and I launched an initiative to enhance the open welcoming environment for travelers to the United States, including business travelers, while again ensuring that the necessary safeguards are in place. We outlined a shared vision for strengthening security at our borders while easing the path for those who want to visit, study and conduct business in the country.
A lot of this is extending the duration of certain kinds of student visas, trying to streamline the visa process, but without sacrificing the important security benefits, and retooling some of our airports to better assist and welcome visitors.
We also intend to leverage an advisory board to provide regular institutional outreach with the travel business and academic communities to identify best practices when we address our travel policies, and to enlist their support in encouraging visits to the U.S.
A third critical part is making sure that we do have secure and reliable travel documents. And here we're getting to one of those areas where I think I'm going to have to say that while we want to balance security with ease of travel and trade, we will have to recognize that security does place some additional demands on us in terms of convenience and in terms of information sharing and in terms of secure documentation.
And I would make the case to the business community that supporting this kind of investment in security is very important, because the most damaging thing to our trade or travel would be an event such as the one we averted, thankfully, this past August. If there had been a successful attack on multiple airliners coming to the U.S., there would have been a devastating impact on the business community. That's the intention of these kinds of plans. And taking prudent steps, even when those steps do require some sacrifice of convenience and some additional cost, is actually a way of preserving the investment that you all have in ready travel and trade. And that's what I mean about a balance. A balance is both sides of the equation, not only one side of the equation.
For that reason -- although Congress has created some additional flexibility in the implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative -- I do want to reiterate that we are committed to bringing this initiative online. This comes directly from one of the 9/11 Commission recommendations. And it's really nothing that ought to be particularly alarming because it builds upon some very successful programs we already have, such as NEXUS, FAST and SENTRI. These are programs in which we have a secure card, we validate the people who have the card, and it creates an efficient way for people to move back and forth across the border.
We have made it very clear that our approach to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative is not to require passports for everybody, but to search for passport alternatives that will be secure, in terms of being tamper-proof; and will rest upon an appropriate screening process, in terms of determining citizenship; and that is relatively inexpensive and convenient.
But there does come a point in time we will have to bite the bullet and get this thing done.
And so my message to you is we want to work with the community to come up with a way to do it as efficiently and as inexpensively as possible. But I also want to urge that efforts to continually delay or put off will not be a solution to the problem. We must come to grips with this. If we do not start to build the architecture of a travel card and a regime of travel documents that is secure, we will find ourselves back where we did before 9/11, with people using very, very insecure documents to gain access to our travel pathways, with potentially very serious consequences to loss of life and the economy.
So my plea to you is this. We want to work with you, we want to be efficient, we want to make sure the steps we take do not interfere with the flow of travel and trade; but we also want to move forward on these initiatives. We need to find ourselves, at the end of the day, with a process for worldwide trade and travel that does give people a reasonable assurance of security, that does eliminate the myriad of completely insecure travel documents that we still use in some areas of crossing the border, and that does give us the kind of additional information and screening that we need not only to protect citizens, but to protect your assets and your investments as you continue to build greater international trade and hemispheric trade and commerce, which benefits us all.
So I look forward to continuing to have discussion with you. I'm committed to being as transparent and as forthright as I can be about what our intentions are. We will always listen; but we also are going to start making decisions, because we cannot kick the can down the road indefinitely. And what we want to do is work with you to make sure the decisions are intelligent, focused on a risk managed approach, and optimal in terms of balancing our security and our economic prosperity and our freedom.
Thank you very much.
Question: I'm from the American Chamber of Commerce in Brazil. Mr. Secretary, one of the things that the American chambers usually do in their countries is to defend the image of the United States. What we want with this is obviously to foster better and more business between the United States and our countries. And this image today has been very tarnished because of the visa problem. And, surprisingly enough, it's not because visas are not granted, or are granted -- what is doing harm to the image are the lines to have interviews for visas.
In my country these lines today may last six months. But they haven't been less than four months in several years. And we understand that the United States has all the right to protect its interests. And, again, there is not a backlash against the process; the backlash is against the duration of the process.
The American chambers in those affected countries have been in touch with the local American embassies and consulates. And they constantly say that the only reason for the lines is that they do not have enough people. The visas are charged at the rate, I think, $100 per person. And this revenue, it's fairly good. In the city of Rio de Janeiro, for example, some 5,000 visas are issued every month -- that's half a million dollars' revenue. And it comes to our minds that it shouldn't be too difficult to have more people and eliminate the lines and thus improve the image of the United States.
And so more than a question, I make you a plea that you look into this problem, because it has been very, very harmful to the image to our countries. Thank you.
Secretary Chertoff: I think Secretary Rice and I are both committed to having a more efficient and speedy visa process. Obviously, we don't want to sacrifice the quality of the review process. I know that the State Department, which obviously runs the process overseas, is looking at videoconferencing and other kinds of techniques that would expedite the process, and also, frankly, make it more convenient by having more places people could go and interact.
I think I'd also like to look at whether some of the new technologies would give us some ability to speed the process up by getting us a better quality of information, as opposed to just simply relying on the traditional information we get.
One example is we are looking at rolling out the process overseas of 10 prints, rather than two prints, at the time you apply for a visa. That would actually give us a much greater ability to screen people against data bases of latent fingerprints, which would identify potential security threats, and that might actually speed the process up.
Now, what I can't tell you is how the money directly translates into hiring. That all enters into the appropriations process and Congress is involved. But you do have a very strong determination by the Secretary of State and by me to make this process more efficient and quicker.
Question: I have a question about the wall that is going to be built on the border with Mexico. I wonder if your department has any estimate of how effective it will be in stopping illegal immigration? I mean, how many fewer illegal immigrants will come into this country?
Secretary Chertoff: This is an issue which is a subject of a great deal of conversation. Let me address the question by putting it in context.
The issue of illegal migration has been around for 20 or 30 years in this country. Therefore, it shouldn't be surprising that it's not going to be a matter of a few weeks to solve the problem.
The strategy that we have taken is one that requires additional Border Patrol and infrastructure at the border, including high tech -- what I call a virtual fence -- more vigorous enforcement in the interior against, particularly against, frankly, businesses that make as their business model the employment of illegal migrants. And, third, a temporary worker program that brings the large number of people who want to come into the country for purely economic reasons into a process that is regulated, that gives them a secure form of identification and that is visible to us.
And my argument for a temporary worker program is only that will disengage the huge economic engine which is drawing millions of people to try to sneak into the country. And, as important, by getting those who only come across to do work, and not to do harm, into a structured program, it will allow our law enforcement and our border people to focus on those who come to do harm, who are a small minority. And rather than chasing people who really don't want to do anything else than labor, I'd rather have our Border Patrol and our enforcement people chasing those who are coming in to do something bad: committing crimes, moving drugs or even committing acts of terror.
So you have to look at the question of fencing not as a solution in itself, but as part of a package of solutions.
Now, in some parts of the border, tactical fencing makes sense, particularly in urban areas where it's necessary to slow people up, otherwise they get to trains or buses or highways within a matter of minutes.
In other parts of the desert we think a high tech solution is appropriate and we've just awarded a contract to begin a combination of ground-based radar and other kinds of high tech tools that will allow us to detect entries in remote areas, but don't necessarily require us to have the Border Patrol sitting on the border. It would give us greater flexibility.
This is, if I daresay, a completely pragmatic approach to the problem. I want a solution that works. At the end of the day I have only one goal, which is to get control of the border and eliminate the flow of illegal migrants. I believe that this comprehensive solution offers us the only realistic hope for getting this done.
We are partway underway, and we are seeing some success. We have added several thousand more Border Patrol and we're on track to doubling the size of the Border Patrol. We have added the National Guard. We have added fencing. We are beginning the process of putting the high tech tools in. And we are beginning to see through these efforts -- and other things, like ending catch and release and increased interior enforcement -- we are seeing for the first time a drop in the number of illegal migrants who are entering the country. So the momentum is beginning to shift the other way.
But I'm always careful to say to people the criminal organizations that smuggle people in have invested lots of money in their criminal business model, and they will be pushing back. So we cannot pat ourselves on the back. This is going to require persistence and steadfastness if we're going to build on the momentum we've developed and continue to move forward. And I'm committed to do that, using all of the tools that Congress gives us to put against the problem.
Question: Thank you, Mr. Chertoff. I was wondering if you can make some comments on how the security cooperation is doing not only with Mexico and other countries in the region, considering those measures you describe are more unilateral way as multilateral or in work today closer together with the other countries in the region. Thank you.
Secretary Chertoff: I think we've had very good cooperation with many of the countries in the region -- countries in Central America, many of the countries in South America, we have terrific cooperation, whether it's cooperation with respect to terrorism and narcotics trafficking, such as we have, for example, in Colombia; whether it's cooperation in repatriating illegal migrants, which we've had from a number of countries in the Western Hemisphere.
I think we all recognize that there's a mutual interest in elevated security. And I think that goes hand in hand with the increasing emphasis that we've been putting on mutual trade, including CAFTA and NAFTA.
So this is definitely what we call a win/win situation. We all do better if we cooperate on security, because that also enhances our ability to cooperate economically.
Question: Secretary Chertoff, I have a couple of comments and a quick question. First comment is, I know there's a lot of negative things we can say about the inconveniences because of the additional security at the border, but I was just recently crossing the border with my elderly in-laws, taking them shopping and doing a little tourism in San Antonio, Texas, and I would like to compliment the good training that your staff has received there. They were very attentive to not only my elderly in-laws, but to the other elderly that were in the line. Roberto Cavasos (ph) was witness to the attention that they received there at the border, and for that we want to thank you. I know there's a lot of bad things we could say about the inconveniences, but they are taking good care of the people while they're there.
Another comment I'd like to make is that we are a small business based out of San Antonio, Texas. We'd like any support you have for the small businesses that might be able to participate in the SBI initiative.
Thank you.
Secretary Chertoff: Thank you for your comments.
###This page was last reviewed/modified on October 17, 2006.
