9-11: A look ahead

9-11's changes for business: for the better?

by Annie Baxter, Minnesota Public Radio

In the five years since 9-11, a number of industries have ramped up their security measures. That's been especially true in areas like freight shipping and banking. Those industries have to pay a lot more attention to who their customers are, and tell the government about any suspicious activities they see. But some local companies question the value of the measures they have to take.

Mendota Heights, Minn. — When planes hit the World Trade Center towers five years ago, Bob Masters thought it might spell the end of his company 1,000 miles away. He's senior vice president of Manna Freight systems in Mendota Heights. Manna's a freight forwarding company that delivers other companies' products to destinations throughout the U.S. and abroad.

At the time of the attacks, Manna was moving a lot of cargo by plane.

"We realized then that in the event that the terrorists were capable of putting one more bomb on an airplane, we were likely to see the destruction of the airline industry and the cargo industry," Masters says.

To avoid that, a team at Manna Freight Systems developed and patented an X-ray screening process for cargo. Bob Masters says a government security agency expressed interest in the patented process, but it never went anywhere.

But the government did push for greater security, namely by beefing up the "known shipper" policy. It requires freight forwarders to physically verify the existence of the companies whose goods they're transporting.

Bob Masters says the idea is that a site visit might uncover fraudulent or improper business operations.

Masters scoffs when asked whether the "known shipper" policy turns his company into a mini-investigative unit, whose aim is to make sure customers aren't criminals.

"That would be a fair assessment if we were verifying they're not criminals," he says. "We are simply verifying they exist. So the level of investigation would be equivalent to a police officer looking for a criminal, but in fact only finding out if people live on this block, rather than finding out if there's a criminal in this home."

Masters thinks the security system the government pushed for is toothless and that air cargo isn't any safer than it was before. As a result he's changed his business model entirely.

Manna Freight Systems now moves 80 percent of its customers' cargo on the ground, about double the amount shipped by truck before 9-11.

Bob Masters says trucking just seems like a safer way to go at this point.

And here at one of the terminals where trucks drop off and pick up cargo, there is indeed one security measure, mandated by the government, that Masters applauds. He points to the rolling gates in the doorways of the loading dock.

"All their doors, even if they're open, have to have cages in front. {It} keeps you and me from getting in and putting stuff in the cargo. These measures make sense," Masters says.

Other industries also had to get used to post-9-11 security measures.

Financial institutions now have to exercise extra vigilance about unusual transactions. Banks are obliged to file suspicious activity reports, and to regularly check their customers' names against a list of "prohibited" people that's furnished by the government.

At BankCherokee on St. Paul's East Side, the receptionist seems to know everyone walking through the door. Even so, the bank's compliance officer, Bill Patient, says they're watching out for anything fishy and filing reports with the government. He says the heightened vigilance has required extra training, time, and effort, though he's not necessarily complaining.

"We see it not only as a cost of doing business," Patient says. "But I personally see it as a moral obligation we have, just in terms of the national security."

Patient says prior to 9-11, banks' legal obligations under a body of law called the Bank Secrecy Act mostly had to do with keeping an eye out for tax evasion and money laundering.

"After 9-11, even though those areas were still important," he explains, "I would say the shift was ever so slightly to the potential funding of terrorists."

But Patient also says it's possible for terrorist funding activities to remain way below the radar.

The 9-11 attacks were funded by small sums of cash deposited into an account over time. Patient says that none of the laws from before or after 9-11 would flag such transactions as problematic. And he doesn't know what more banks can do to catch something.

"In terms of what additional measures, what additional pieces of information could we gather.....That's what a lot of us are struggling with," he says. "After all of this effort, and all these resources, what success have we had?"

Patient anticipates that the government will continue to ask for more information. He says he's confidant that the added vigilance will eventually prevent something horrible from happening. But as he says this, there's a distant look in his eye, and a worried frown on his face.

Broadcast Dates

• All Things Considered, 09/11/2006, 4:52 p.m.