That's odd. We now have directly contradictory reports about what the argreements were between the administration and DP World. I haven't seen the Washington Post article you reference (perhaps you could post its content), but a previous article stated:
"Under a secretive agreement with the administration, a company in the United Arab Emirates promised to cooperate with U.S. investigations as a condition of its takeover of operations at six major American ports . . .The U.S. government chose not to impose other, routine restrictions.
Under the deal, the government asked Dubai Ports to operate American seaports with existing U.S. managers "to the extent possible." The company promised to take "all reasonable steps" to assist the Homeland Security Department.
The administration required Dubai Ports to designate an executive to handle requests from the U.S. government, but it did not specify this person's citizenship.
It said Dubai Ports must retain paperwork "in the normal course of business" but did not specify a time period or require corporate records to be housed in the United States. Outside experts said stricter provisions are routine in other industries.
Foreign communications companies with American customers are commonly required to store business records in the United States. A senior U.S. official said the Bush administration considers shipping manifests less sensitive. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the agreement."
Some immediate questions pop up:
Retention of paperwork relating to "the normal course of business" will be retained in Dubai. Why? This paperwork after all pertains to container contract payments and container content, shipper, and receiver information; to financial interests in DP World; to general cargo, container, and passenger manifests and bills of lading; etc. And these have no security ramifications? Since when?
Shipping manifests are said to be "less sensitive". Less sensitive than what? And if they have suddenly become "less sensitive," what's the point of the customs CIS program and the proposed CVSR program?
"Other routine restrictions" are not being imposed. What other routine restrictions, and why?
I fail to see the logic behind lowering the security bar for DP World, rather than heightening it.
Shipping manifests are less sensitive from a personal liberty standpoint than the phone records of U.S. citizens.
This has nothing to do with SECURITY sensitivity, it has to do with wanting our citizens to maintain the privacy rights guaranteed under U.S. law that wouldn't apply to records kept by a foreign country.