The Customs Service will inspect America-bound cargo containers in Singapore's seaport to prevent terrorists from smuggling nuclear and other weapons into the U.S. inspectors will screen cargo out of one of the busiest ports in the world and currently has inspectors at three Canadian seaports. Details of the Singapore arrangement, including when inspectors will be installed there, still have to be worked out.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Maritime Transportation Antiterrorism Act of 2002, which is intended to improve security at U.S. ports and waterways. The bill now goes to conference committee to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions. The House version focuses on terrorism and gives the Transportation Security Administration authority to conduct container security, but the Senate's bill focuses on overall port security and grants the same authority to the Customs Service.

President Bush outlined plans to consolidate a large number of agencies currently under several executive branch departments into a single new cabinet level Department of Homeland Security (DHS), marking a major shift in how the federal government coordinates intelligence about terrorism and maintains the nation's domestic defenses. The DHS would be organized into five components: border and transportation security; emergency preparedness; chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear countermeasures; informational analysis and infrastructure protection and, Secret Service. The plan provides for the new agency to absorb the U.S. Customs Service from the Department of the Treasury as well as the U.S. Coast Guard and the newly created Transportation Security Administration from the Department of Transportation.