The Global Trade Exchange (GTX) is, or was, a controversial Homeland Security intelligence project, related to maritime-ports data-mining, being one of three pillers of the Safe Ports Act-related Secure Freight Initiatives. The Global Trade Exchange has a mysterious history dating from conception in 2004, a 2007-2008 year of hype, and sudden placement on "hold" status. Described as a ready-to-buy, commercially available database, the GTX was rush-funded by Congress as part of and championed relentlessly by then-United States Secretary of Homeland Security

United States Secretary of Homeland Security

The United States Secretary of Homeland Security is the head of the United States Department of Homeland Security, the body concerned with protecting the American homeland and the safety of American citizens. The Secretary is a member of the President's Cabinet. The position was created by the...

 Michael Chertoff

Michael Chertoff

Michael Chertoff was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush and co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act. He previously served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as a federal prosecutor, and as assistant U.S. Attorney...

 in evident disregard of objections of confused and frustrated U.S. private sector trade groups. After a year-long spate of official support, media hype, and after award of Congressional funding of $13 million, the GTX was put on hold for further study in April 2008, for reasons still yet to-be explained. Touted by senior U.S. officials and Congress in 2007 as an anti-terrorism database for tracking long-haul shipping containers, the Global Trade Exchange's principal focus appears to have a different focus, notably advance trade-finance information for market-making purposes.

DHS Intelligence Trade Data Project

In Spring of 2007 DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff began to actively promote the Global Trade Exchange to the media and trade community as a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) database, able to provide unique and vital national security protection from 'all hazards' threats, Senior DHS Customs officials, described the GTX as a repository of corporate data, and transportation shipping data. Congress noted the GTX description as a COTS tool and placed it into the July 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations budget bill; this done above the vociferious objections of the U.S. private sector. Three major U.S. trade consortia rendered written and spoken testimony to Congress, expressing concerns about the sudden arrival of this new tool, the secrecy surrounding it, as well as posing questions as to why the U.S. Government would be sharing collected corporate data with foreign governments, such as Secretary Chertoff described.

Ports-related "Financial Services Data Warehouse"

The original author of the Global Trade Exchange was Ambassador Jon D. Glassman, the U.S. State Department officer well known for having drafted the Nicaragua War White Paper

Nicaragua War White Paper

The Nicaragua White Paper, drafted by a young intelligence officer named Jon D. Glassman, was a sensationalized piece of psyops propaganda published by the U.S. State Department in February 1981; its purpose was to use public diplomacy to justify the U.S. military intervention in Nicaragua. ...

 in 1981. In 2004, As early as 2004, Ambassador Glassman proposed, at various APEC counter-terrorism seminars, the Global Trade Exchange as an unregulated financial exchange using port-shipping manifest data, i.e. the as a Northrop Grumman-led Financial Services Data Warehouse. A relationship to stock-trading was clear, but the relationship to counter-terrorism not. Many U.S. financial services sector presented this kind of tool for hedge-fund risk management.

2007: Legislative fast-tracking

In April 2007, the "GTX" arrived onto the legislative arena. It became placed within the wider-scaled maritime intelligence framework for supply-chain security, operated under the Safe Ports Act initiatives. The Global Trade Exchange (GTX) was justified under the 9-11 Act as an anti-terrorism data gathering project. GTX was fast-tracked by DHS management, and speed-funded by Congress, resulting in an allocation of $13 million dollars for a joint ODNI/Naval/Coast Guard intelligence project initiation, which commenced in February 2008. The "GTX" mysteriously stopped at month-end-March 2008, and remains "on hold for further study" by the US Naval intelligence.

The Global Trade Exchange was touted as a ready-made project run by a private-sector company in cooperation with foreign governments; data was to have been obtained on a voluntary basis by companies. On July 26, 2007 Senator Patty Murray

Patty Murray

Patricia Lynn "Patty" Murray is the senior United States Senator from Washington and a member of the Democratic Party. Murray was first elected to the Senate in 1992, becoming Washington's first female senator...

 added the GTX to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations budget, by adding Amendment (S.2499) into H.R. 2638.

Controversy about secrecy

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U.S. trade groups expressed strong displeasure at the sudden implemenation of the new project, as well as with the general lack of transparency, public interaction, and disclosure about GTX. These groups found the lack of information regarding justification for, and modalities such as were related to, data-sharing with foreign governments, particularly disturing.

These U.S. trade groups provided formal complaints and testimony to various Federal agencies, as well as various Congressional Committees and Subcommittees. These communications noted concerns that they didn't know the business-reporting sources of data nor what the data were; these groups were normally very involved with such definitions. Also, DHS mentions of using the GTX to share private sector data with foreign governments caused US industry risible worries about business data confidentiality. In December 2007, a request for quote and statement of work were put forth by the DHS.

Congressional funding awarded

Despite the controversy, Global Trade Exchange was allocated $13 million as part of the DHS section of the 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Budget, in January 2008. Northrup Grumman presented the GTX in late February as part of wider DOD supply-chain "GEX" data-warehousing projects.

Global Trade Exchange project

Despite that the GTX was, in principle, a ready-to-purchase database of corporate data which was collected, the actual content of the global trade exchange was never fully presented to either the media nor to U.S. trade groups. Clues to the premise of the project can be found in the GTX statement of work, provided in the 2008 request for quote, released to a small select group of companies, in December 2008.

GTX is envisioned as a privately operated, self-sustaining (e.g. user-fee based) trade information system that will collect commercial transaction data not currently available to us from parties in the supply chain who have contracted or provided services for the production/movement of international shipments and allow government and trade community participants to input and access trade data through an information broker on an expanded global basis. Data maintained by the GTX broker will be available to participating customs agencies 24X7 in the appropriate technical format.

The commercial transaction data was to have been run by a private company information broker performing the following functions:

• Collection, integration, and transmission of data and images from multiple sources;
• Coordinating the participation of all supply chain parties (e.g. foreign host governments & shippers) providing information to GTX;
• Establishing and maintaining all necessary communications and interfaces;
• Ensuring protection of all collected and/or transmitted by the GTX;
• Transmitting data to participating foreign government systems in compliance with foreign government requirements.

2008: On hold for further study

Three weeks after public presentations at U.S. trade conferences, and two months after funding was awarded by Congress, DHS customs official Jayon Ahern announced publicly that the project was premature, and would be delayed for further study.; it remained delayed as from Basham's departure, yet is again part of the 2009 DHS appropriations budget and remains under study for future implementation. In the U.S. House, House Homeland Security Appropriations Chairman David Price

David Price (American politician)

David Eugene Price is a professor and the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1997 and previously from 1987 to 1995. He is a member of the Democratic Party...

(D-NC) has repeatedly expressed wishes for results on the project. As late as May 1, 2009 Commissioner Ahern was providing explanations to Congressman David Price about the DHS ongoing pursuit to find the commercially available COTS database.