According to articles in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Today, CBP's National Targeting Center (NTC), established on October 21, 2001, is the centralized coordination point for all of CBP's anti-terrorism efforts. The NTC provides target-specific information to field offices and is continuously operational. In January 2003, the NTC moved to a new facility in Northern Virginia.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an administrative message announcing that several changes will be made to ABI and FDA software, effective April 14, 2004, to improve the process for filing FDA Prior Notices of imported food (PNs), as follows:

On June 8, 2004, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Bureau of Census (Census) plan to deliver a redesign of the commodity module of the Automated Export System (AES).

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has published a notice of final determination (HQ 562936, dated March 17, 2004) concerning the country of origin of a multifunction printer to be offered to the U.S. Government under an undesignated government procurement contract.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP's) Office of Automated Commercial Systems (ACS) has posted a notice to its Web site containing (a) a list, as of March 4, 2004, of companies/persons offering Air Automated Manifest System (AMS) communication and data processing services to the trade community, and (b) the Air AMS Respondent Checklist, as follows:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced a $19.3 million cooperative agreement with the American Trucking Associations (ATA) to expand ATA's Highway Watch program, which trains highway professionals to identify and report safety and security situations on U.S. roads.

(a) preliminary AD rate of zero

On March 18, 2004, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that it had entered into a new partnership with Florida state House and Senate leaders and with the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to strengthen security for personnel at Florida's seaports.

The Journal of Commerce Online (JoC Online) reports that the World Customs Organization (WCO) is urging its member nations to work together in an effort to boost transportation security in the wake of the Madrid commuter train bombings. WCO called for its members to implement without delay anti-terror measures it has developed. WCO also stated that it will speed up the pace of work conducted by its specialized bodies with regard to international transport security, physical security of containers, effective customs controls, etc. (JoC Online Pub 03/18/04, www.joc.com)

The World Customs Organization (WCO) has issued an amending supplement (No. 4, dated August 2003) to the Harmonized System Explanatory Notes (ENs). (Although not binding on U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the ENs are followed by CBP whenever possible.) (This is Part II of a multi-part series of summaries on this amending supplement. See future issues of ITT for additional summaries.)