Coming on the heels of a report highly critical of the Department of Homeland Security’s port security grant program released earlier this week, DHS Acting Inspector General Richard L. Skinner has announced an ambitious audit plan for fiscal ’05 that includes several probes of department maritime security programs.

At least nine separate audits or investigations are planned for the Coast Guard alone, Skinner announced in releasing the IG’s “Fiscal Year 2005 Annual Performance Plan.”

Among the audits Skinner’s office plans to conduct, the performance plan reported, are:

· A mandatory assessment of the effectiveness of the Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) targeting system to detect potential terrorist acts using oceangoing cargo containers, as well as identifying remedial actions necessary to correct deficiencies in targeting containers for inspection;

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