• Coast Guard works to prevent rising mission-related deaths

    Admiral Robert Papp, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), announced that the service is conducting a comprehensive review and may eliminate certain missions and capabilities, in light of the sharp increase of mission related deaths; in the past two years, fourteen Coast Guard aviators and one Maritime Safety and Security Team (MSST) member have died in accidents that occurred during routine missions; Admiral Papp is concerned that service members are overburdened by training for too many different skill sets and have had inadequate time to master them; since 9/11 USCG has added missions and capabilities without a corresponding increase in service personnel; Papp cites a helicopter crash in July 2010 that killed three aviators as evidence; the crash occurred during a routine mission in which the team was flying from Astoria, Oregon to Sitka, Alaska

  • Mobile biometric screening technology for seaports years away

    A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is still years away from implementing handheld biometric screening devices electronically to verify passengers entering the United States aboard ships; approximately five million people arrive in the United States by sea each year; CBP agents currently conduct inspections aboard ships and lack access to databases to verify passports, travel documents, or passenger information and report their findings which has led to incorrect and untimely updates to national databases; DHS has made procurement of these devices a “high priority,” but believes it will be years before they can be implemented aboard ships; the primary challenge is remotely linking the mobile devices to databases in the maritime environment

  • Pirate attack prediction model developed

    A mathematician has developed a piracy prediction model based on wind, waves, currents, as well as on the ground intelligence that could help predict the probability of a pirate attack on a given day; the system would function like a tornado warning system using weather data to project high risk areas on a map; the map could be further refined by adding in real time shipping traffic to indicate which ships are most likely to be attacked; piracy has grown worse in the last year, despite stepped up naval patrols; 80 percent of the world’s cargo still travels by sea

  • Saracen, another Erik Prince company, in trouble in Somalia

    Despite claims to the contrary, Erik Prince, the founder and owner of the private military company Xe, formally known as Blackwater Worldwide, is part of the management team of another troubled security firm — Saracen; the Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) signed a contract with Saracen calling on the company to maintian peace, security, and stability in the country — only for UN and African union observers to realize that the company signed a separate security-related agreement with the separatist Puntland region in the north, in violation of the UN arms embargo

  • Port of L.A. heist raises questions about port security

    The Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex uses the latest — together with the simplest — technology in trying to prevent weapons of mass destruction from being smuggled through the port. Among these means used: a $3 million high-tech screening ship, a radiation-detecting helicopter and a badge-carrying black Labrador retriever that can sniff out chemical and biological weapons; all these security measures, and more, could not prevent an old-fashion heist of cargo containers from the port; the damage to the companies involved aside, the ease with which garden variety robbers could enter the port, over-power security guards, and leave with three large trailers raises questions about what more sophisticated terrorist might be able to do

  • FSU spin-off contributes to U.S. ports protection

    With 2.5 billion tons of cargo worth more than $2 trillion passing through U.S. seaports each year, the maritime transportation industry is critical to the U.S. economy, and security is a constant concern; a massive training curriculum is designed by Florida State University (FSU) researchers to promote the security of the nation’s 350 commercial ports is about to enter the marketplace.

  • U.S. Navy buys sensor system from FLIR to protect ships from terrorist attacks

    U.S. Navy ship systems designers needed electro-optical sensor systems for the Shipboard Protection System (SPS), which helps protect Navy surface vessels from terrorist attacks while moored to piers, at anchor, or during restricted maneuvering; they found their solution from Wilsonville, Oregon-based FLIR Systems

  • Securing the global supply chain is daunting task

    The global supply chain consists of 140 million shipping containers; the United States has 12,000 miles of coastline, making it hard to funnel cargo through a limited number of entrances; currently, security officials inspect only 6 percent of all cargo coming into the United States; one security experts says: “If you double that, we still have a long way to go— If you triple that, we still have a long way to go”

  • Rescue 21 bolsters Coast Guard's search-and-rescue capablilities

    Rescue 21 is already covering portions of the U.S. coastline and, as of last week, officially includes the coasts of Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and the upper Chesapeake Bay

  • India equipped to protect the October Commonwealth Games against WMD attacks

    India will have a big security challenge when the Commonwealth Games begin in October; Indian security agencies say they are equipped to face chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) terrorist threats during the games; intelligence agencies have been working on the possibility of attacks from Kashmiri groups like the Hizbul Mujahidden, the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Taliban from Pakistan or Afghanistan, and even Al Qaeda; militant outfits of various other ideological hues are also on the police radar

  • Hi-tech navies protect shipping from Somalia's pirates

    The six ship EU force and other Western-led forces patrolling the Gulf of Aden have disrupted fifty-nine pirate groups in April and May alone; some naval forces in the region concentrate on escorting convoys of their own national vessels, while the Western-led forces spread themselves across the region saying they want to protect all shipping regardless of flag

  • Engineers to enhance crane-mounted cargo scanning system

    VeriTainer, a venture-backed specialist in crane-based radiation detection technology for scanning shipping containers, enters into a three-and-a-half years, $4 million n R&D agreement with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to enhance the gamma and neutron detection sensitivity of the company’s radiation scanners

  • Cruise ships may be required to hand over passenger reservation data

    Security experts worry about a waterside attack using a waterborne improvised explosive device; such an attack could conceivably come while the ship was in transit or docked at port; to address this worry, DHS will require cruise ships departing and entering the United States to provide Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with passenger reservation data

  • CBP deploys radiation detection portals at Port Hueneme, California

    During fiscal year 2009, CBP deployed 179 new radiation portal monitors (RPMs) throughout the U.S. ports of entry, bringing the number of RPMs to 1,354 at the U.S. land and sea ports of entry; the latest RPM were deployed at Port Hueneme, California

  • The Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex uses a variety of means to detect WMD

    The Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex uses the latest — together with the simplest — technology in trying to prevent weapons of mass destruction from being smuggled through the port; among these means used: a $3 million high-tech screening ship, a radiation-detecting helicopter and a badge-carrying black Labrador retriever that can sniff out chemical and biological weapons