US Coast Guard issues report from National Small Vessel Security Summit
By IBI Magazine
The US Homeland Security Institute has made public a report and recommendations for action following the National Small Vessel Security Summit (NSVSS) that took place last June. The summit was organised by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and featured speakers from the US Coast Guard, US Customs and Border Patrol, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. The NSVSS also brought together 260 "stakeholders" from the recreational and commercial marine industries to discuss how to proceed with creating a national strategy for thwarting terrorist attacks on US ports using small boats. The participants heard from speakers, then broke into groups that were presented with scenarios that included terrorists commandeering a small boat and using it to deliver a nuclear or radiological weapon of mass destruction (WMD) on a coastal port like New York or Boston. "What could have been done to deter, defeat or mitigate the attack and its effects?" the participants were asked. "Among stakeholders there was general agreement that at the present time it would be relatively easy for a terrorist organisation to acquire or commandeer a small vessel to conduct a terrorist attack against the United States," said the report. "Overall, commercial vessels were viewed as less of a terrorism threat than pleasure craft as the recreational boating community was thought to be less regulated and more diffuse than the commercial vessel sector. Another major concern was that, depending on the target, terrorists would be more likely to acquire small vessels to be used in terrorist attacks from foreign countries in close proximity to the United States (i.e. Canada, Mexico or nations in the Caribbean). While the participants did not agree on every point in the report, especially when it came to national licensing or AIS boat monitoring systems, the organisers drew up a list of recommendations that have been forwarded to the Department of Homeland Security. "DHS needs to develop a coherent National Small Vessel Security Strategy based on a layered security approach," read the report. The report made these specific recommendations: • DHS should not impose overly restrictive regulatory constraints on small vessel operators or their boats in the areas of licensing, registration, or tracking. • DHS needs to conduct and convey threat and risk assessments on a continuing basis in order to: 1) define the nature of the threat; 2) determine port specific security needs; and 3) clarify the small vessel threat from foreign countries. • DHS needs to take immediate steps to engage the small vessel stakeholder community and ensure their continual engagement, by keeping them informed on issues of safety and security. • Funding is needed to support state, local, tribal, and territorial maritime law enforcement entities. • Law enforcement training deficiencies need to be addressed to meet a variety of safety and security objectives. • A universal hotline telephone number needs to be developed and disseminated so that the boating community can report both suspicious activities and emergency situations. • At this time it is not recommended that AIS technologies be required for vessels under 65 feet in length until the technology is perfected, cost significantly reduced, or until law enforcement has the ability to track and respond to all vessels being tracked in their area of responsibility. • Research into alternative technologies similar to but less expensive than AIS need to be conducted in order to evaluate the usefulness of such technologies in balancing cost with effectiveness in maintaining maritime domain awareness. • More must be done to streamline credentialing to ensure that various jurisdictions accept the same standards, including solutions such as adding a boat operator endorsement to state driver licenses. • A national boat registry should be created so that it can be indexed and searched by federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies. • The federal government needs to enhance international cooperation and intelligence sharing with our foreign counterparts especially with those countries in close proximity to the United States. • To help prevent a radiological or nuclear attack, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies need to be provided with radiological detection devices. • The federal government should develop radiological and nuclear detection devices with a stand-off capability in order to provide detection with minimal impact on small vessel stakeholder operations. • The federal government should strengthen counter-proliferation initiatives with our foreign counterparts to prevent shipments of WMD, their delivery systems, or related materials from ever taking place. The report noted that a small vessel strategy is currently being developed by DHS. It also said that regional small vessel summits are currently being planned for coastal US cities, as well as locations in the Gulf of Mexico, and heartland regions.
(21 January 2008)
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