Secure Freight Initiative to launch by year's end

The Department of Homeland Security will launch the pilot program for the Secure Freight Initiative sometime before the end of 2006.

Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson told the House Homeland Security Committee in April that DHS would “reprogram,” or divert budget funds to launch the pilot.

Officials have promoted the Secure Freight Initiative as the next-generation information gathering and processing system to identify cargo shipments at risk for tampering by terrorists.

Unlike programs that rely solely on cargo manifest information to target high-risk cargo, the Secure Freight Initiative would extract data from a number of sources, and compile them in privately-operated “fusion centers.”