Ramstions 3 - CTPAT

A few days ago my company told us that we could no longer receive personal packages at work. This is somewhat of an inconvenience to me since it means if I ever order anything that requires a signature I would have to go and pick it up from the nearest shipping center since I'll never be at home when they try to deliver the package. Initially I thought this was some bizarre decision that was made to save money. I went to explain to HR that this was a bad way to save a few bucks. What I found out annoyed me much more than a company trying to save money. The reason we could no longer receive personal packages had nothing with saving money and everything to do with the CTPAT. CTPAT stands for Custom Trade Partners Against Terrorism. Since my company is based in Canada and it is one of the top importers into the US it was forced to join this organization. Being part of this organization requires that you know what is being shipped, by whom, and who it is being delivered to. Basically this means no personal packages and a lot of extra paper work when I need to order something for work.

I'm no genius but I can't figure out for the life of me what this is supposed to accomplish, let along how it will stop terrorism. Why just because my company is based in Canada is it singled out? All I want to do is have a package from one place in the US delivered to my office in the US, but for some reason there now this huge ball of red tape in my way. I’ve tried to figure out what this has to do with terrorism and I can’t reason it out. Sometimes you just wonder what the heck our government is thinking...