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Creating the Department of Homeland Security: Consideration of the Administration's Proposal
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Mr. Frank Panico
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and
members of the Subcommittee. Thank
you for this opportunity to speak with you today about in-bound international
mail. We share your concerns about
the possible use of the mail to ship radioactive materials and other potentially
dangerous substances. As events of the past year have demonstrated, the United
States Government must be more vigilant than ever in regard to both
international and domestic terrorism. Needless
to say, compromising the U.S. Mail system has the potential to adversely impact
the entire nation through a single terrorist act, so we take threats to this
system very seriously. Last
year, Congress provided the Postal Service with $500 million in the Fiscal Year
2002 Department of Defense Appropriations bill.
The conference report required that the Postal Service prepare a
comprehensive Emergency Preparedness Plan.
The Emergency Preparedness Plan was submitted to Congress on March 6,
2002. The
Postal Inspection Service provided the Postal Service with a threat assessment,
which serves as a basis for our Emergency Preparedness Plan. The
Postal Inspection Service maintains a continuous liaison with all appropriate
federal law enforcement agencies and monitors threats to the nation and its
mail. The
threat assessment concluded, "Accordingly, the Postal Service believes, and is
acting on the assumption that the threat for the inappropriate use of the mails
continues." The threat assessment also notes, "The greatest
opportunities to limit the damage of covert NBC [nuclear, biological, or
chemical] attacks, or prevent them entirely, exist during the first phases of
the incident." Therefore,
our Emergency Preparedness Plan places a premium on threat identification,
combined with protection to both employees and customers of the Postal Service
at the earliest feasible point in our distribution system. Unfortunately,
the Postal Service has had to deal with the issue of bombs in the mail for a
number of years. The most widely
reported case was the Unabomber, but there have been other incidents over the
years. As a result, we continue to
educate our employees about identifying suspicious packages, particularly
package bombs. Beyond education, we
make responsible changes to our processes as necessary to meet new threats. For
example, in 1996, the Postal Service revised our procedures for accepting
domestic and international parcels for mailing.
Since that time, all domestic stamped
parcels and all international and military mail weighing 16 ounces or more must
be presented in person to a postal retail clerk or letter carrier. As
a result, the number of package bombs in the mail system dropped from 18-20 per
year to an average of about 3-5 per year. The Postal Service is looking at a variety of process changes and technology initiatives that could be applied to the threat of chemical, biological and radiological hazards in the mail. As
described by the plan, the Postal Service is currently testing bio-detection
technology on the automated processing equipment at one of our mail processing
plants. This equipment has already passed tests at Edgewood Arsenal.
In addition, we are testing filtration devices to improve our employee
safety and to minimize cross-contamination of the mail.
We anticipate a contract award by the end of September. Careful
review and consideration is being given to all currently available processes and
technologies. The paramount conclusion is that no single solution exists to
solve the complex problem of using the mail as a tool of terrorism. Further,
no solution or even series of solutions can totally eliminate the threat. To
assist us in this review, we have contracted with Mitretek Systems to perform a
comprehensive threat analysis. Mitretek
is a well-respected, nonprofit systems-engineering company that provides
programmatic and technical support on chemical, biological, radiological, and
conventional weapons threats to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities. In
fact, Mitretek's President and CEO, Dr. Lydia W. Thomas, has been appointed to
serve on the recently established Homeland Security Advisory Council by
President Bush. This
assessment will review threats that may impinge on the mail, including the full
spectrum of biological, chemical, explosive, and radiological threats.
The assessment considers threats that may be directed at the Postal
Service or may use the Postal Service as a vehicle. As a result of this assessment, we will propose steps that may be taken to counter the threats and develop an overall risk/cost/benefit analysis, including an estimate of system effectiveness for protecting employees and customers, and for ensuring the continuity of postal operations in the event of a terror attack. The
viability of the Postal Service, and its value to the American people, is
dependent upon an open and accessible system.
Extreme procedural changes could reduce threats, but would significantly
damage the usefulness of the mail to the American people - and the American
economy. Since
the anthrax attacks, the Postal Service has worked closely with both the Office
of Homeland Security and the President's Office of Science and Technology
Policy. We provided both of these
organizations with copies of our Emergency Preparedness Plan and followed up
with briefings to their staffs. Building
upon our Emergency Preparedness Plan, we worked with Homeland Security in the
development of a national Critical Infrastructure Plan.
The Office of Science Technology and Policy has established the
Inter-Agency Working Group for the protection of vulnerable systems, a group on
which our Vice President of Engineering sits.
He chairs the Mail and Package Working Group.
This group is evaluating existing technology, as well as providing
guidance as to where research and development efforts should be best directed. We
also continue to coordinate with all appropriate agencies about mail security,
including the US Customs Service. The
USPS and the Inspection Service have met with Customs and discussed the
potential for radiological, chemical and biological hazards in
foreign-originating mail. Most
of our previous discussions have centered on the examination of outbound mail,
as the Customs Service has the authority and responsibility for the examination
of all in-bound mail and cargo. In
addition, the Dangerous Goods Subgroup of the Universal Postal Union's Postal
Security Action Group (PSAG) is working closely with the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) to address the issue of radioactive materials in the mail.
PSAG has worked with some of the international posts that have
experimented with screening mail. While
these experiments have identified low-level radioactive materials, such as smoke
detectors and medical equipment, there have been no instances of suspicious
radioactive mailings. As
for international mail, we believe that the Customs Service is the agency
with the responsibility and authority to detect radiological material imported
into the country. And Customs has
assured us that it is working on the issue.
We believe Customs would be the most effective and efficient agency to
perform this duty and we will continue to work with them, and all appropriate
agencies at home, and abroad, to assure the safety of America's mail system. To that end, we would be
pleased to work with this Committee in any way possible to preserve the security
and the usefulness of the United States mail. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to respond to any questions or suggestions you might have.
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