T.D. Clark writes at the Industrial Market Trends Blog advocating the use of RFID and global tracking seals to ensure security at U.S. and other countries' ports:

The government's two-tiered answer to our security woes sound kinda flimsy. The vehicle for this is voluntary participation in a cooperative program with customs called the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT). The second part is requiring trading partners to transmit as much information as possible so that the government can collect and analyze the information in its new trade processing system, the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). Perhaps these types of actions should be mandatory?

Why not make more tangible technologies such as RFID and global tracking seals requirements to become compliant with port security? Asset tracking is the area which 60 percent of businesses surveyed perceive will gain the biggest benefit from RFID, followed by securing the supply chain (33 per cent) and today's tracking seals completely secure both the locking bars of containers and trailers.

The article refers to recent research by AMR Research into the U.S. government's effort to deal with port security. Although the original research report requires a subscription and is not publicly available, check out these other resources containing information about container and port security:

Safe Commerce: Securing the Global Supply Chain

Building the Secure Supply Chain