A report released in mid-September by the National Center for Policy Analysis said the nation’s sole computer dedicated to counting the number of imports coming into the United States is aged and overworked.
The system, which is 15 years old, stands near collapse, experts have warned. If it does — even for a few hours, NCPA said — goods vital to American businesses would languish in ports.
“U.S. companies that rely on just-in-time deliveries might have to shut down production,” the report said. “Economists say the ripple effect could cost the U.S. billions of dollars” at a time when possible Y2K-related problems are just around the corner.
When the computer system, known as ACS (Automated Commercial System), was first launched, U.S. imports totaled $332 billion annually. Now, however, imports have ballooned to over $1 trillion per year.
Earlier this month, the computer shut down for six hours and, NCPA said, “threw the U.S. Customs Service off by three weeks.” A second glitch two weeks later caused the system to “muddle along” for two days.
While a new system would cost about $1.5 billion, NCPA said, “Congress and the White House are dragging their feet on spending the money.”
Last spring Customs officials ran a simulated system shutdown and reverted to counting imports with pen and paper. NCPA said they became severely backlogged in about six hours.
“After a theoretical 30-day shutdown, cargoes would have been delayed by as long as eight days in port,” the report said. “Manufacturers would have been deprived of vitally important parts, and agriculture imports would have rotted.”
A spokesman for Woody Hall, Chief Information Officer for the U.S. Customs Service, told WorldNetDaily that the agency is currently involved in building a backup “life support system” for the ACS computer.
But, he said, the ACS computer problems would more accurately be described as “slowdowns and brownouts rather than complete failures” during tests earlier this year, and admitted that indeed the system had difficulty processing data.
“It’s a fairly old system,” the spokesman said, “but there are no plans to replace it over the next few years.” Rather, he said, the agency is engaged in an extensive upgrade that will “add new functionality” to the system and improve its reliability. And, he said, the agency is “downloading online data on the system,” in order to free up memory and operating speed.
