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A real-time tracking system developed years ago for the Defense Department is emerging as a crucial component of an industry-driven cargo security network that aims to prevent terrorists from smuggling weapons of mass destruction into major ports.

"The big concern is that terrorists will put a bomb or a chemical - or even themselves - into one of these containers coming into the United States," said Mark Nelson, a spokesman for Savi Technology, which helped build the Defense Department's Total Asset Visibility (TAV) network, and is now helping to spearhead a public-private effort to achieve an "end-to-end" tracking system for commercial cargo.

The Smart and Secure Tradelanes (SST) port-security initiative aims to enable manufacturers, shippers and port officials to monitor the contents and location of the thousands of shipping containers that enter U.S. ports each day. "The key is to go back to the point of origin and make sure everything's secured and certified from the moment of ... putting the shipments together, all the way to the point of destination," Nelson said.

Shipping companies participating in the program would equip cargo containers with radio-frequency identification devices that would communicate with satellite systems and Web-based software. Those systems would work together to notify port officials of any unauthorized tampering with shipping containers before they reach U.S. ports.

"Wherever you're sitting, you're going to know exactly when that container was violated, where it is, what's inside of it, whether it's on schedule or delayed, and [whether] an authorized person opened it," Nelson said.

Nelson said the Defense Department has extended its TAV network to many key commercial seaports, airports and trucking terminals around the world. "In some places where that network already exists, it would make sense to leverage it for commercial purposes," he said. "A lot of the infrastructure is already in place. It's been paid for by government dollars, just like the Internet was many years ago and now is being used also for commercial purposes."

But even with that existing network in place, Nelson said it would probably take years to fully deploy the SST network.

"When will it be completed? Probably never," Nelson said. "But the main part of it is to ensure the security of imports, and that will probably be within a couple of years."

Government and private-sector officials launched a key segment of the SST on Friday. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., announced that the Port of New York and New Jersey would be the first SST deployment site on the Eastern seaboard. The initiative was launched at major ports in Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom that same day.

"What we have here is an unprecedented partnership between private companies and federal agencies," Schumer said, noting that 60 percent of North American trade enters the Port of New York and New Jersey, which handled more than 2 million cargo containers last year. "SST will help protect this supply chain and [prevent] a nuclear, biological, chemical or conventional weapon from reaching our shores."