Oh yeah, this is bright.....give them 2 days notice to toss evidence over
board...what ever happened to the "Element of Surprise"? What moron thought
this was a good idea?
KLM & Air Chance, I mean Air France tried pulling the same stunt with us,
that we had to give them a min 2 hr notice before the ETA to let them know
we were checking passengers and their documents...... so they either flushed
their docs during the flight, or ate them....yes you heard right, they have
eaten their docs......
When will we ever learn??
**Fed up Fed**
Coast Guard warns ships of inspections
Spokesman: Units must balance between protection, commerce
>From Kathleen Koch
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Coast Guard sometimes alerts large commercial
ships they will be searched as they approach port so as not to burden
shipping companies financially, the Coast Guard acknowledged to CNN on
Saturday.
The New York Times first reported the story earlier in the day, saying that
commanders of some ports provided up to 24 hours notice to ships to keep
commerce moving.
At the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach in California, the Coast Guard gives
as much notice as it can, said Lt. Tony Migliorini, a spokesman for the
port. "It's kind of a balancing act," he told CNN.
Commanders especially give notice of dockside safety inspections, so that
shipping companies don't have their longshoremen on the dock with nothing to
do until the inspection is complete, Migliorini said.
Even during boardings at sea, the port typically notifies ship management in
advance that the Coast Guard is coming aboard, Migliorini said.
Migliorini said the Coast Guard boards vessels for a variety of security and
safety reasons.
Those safety reasons include cross-checking crew and cargo lists with those
with the port, as well as allowing dogs to sniff for bombs and to check for
radiation, officials told The New York Times. The searches can last between
30 minutes and 12 hours, the paper reported.
Former Coast Guard Cmdr. Stephen Flynn, a critic of tipping off ships, told
The New York Times it was counterproductive to give notice. "If you say,
'heads up, when you get close to port in two days we're going to board you,'
that sort of defeats the purpose of boarding," he told the paper.
The Coast Guard gives little specific information about its homeland
security mission, other than that it "is at a heightened state of alert
protecting more than 361 ports and 95,000 miles of coastline," according to
the Coast Guard Web site.
It states that in addition to protecting against the infiltration of illegal
drugs, aliens, firearms and weapons of mass destruction, the Coast Guard
also protects "ports, the flow of commerce, and the marine transportation
system from terrorism."
There are few details of the Coast Guard's port security mission, other than
an explanation that its port security units are "staffed primarily with
selected reservists" who "provide waterborne and limited land-based
protection for shipping and critical port facilities," according to the Web
site.
In a statement released Saturday, Cmdr. Paul Thorne, chief of the Coast
Guard's Foreign and Offshore Vessels Division, said that whether the mission
is safety, security or just a random check, "this mission objective might be
enhanced by the withholding of information from ship management or by the
sharing of information with ship management."
Notice varies from port to port
The decision on whether to notify a vessel and under what circumstances is
left up to the port captain, and varies from port to port, Thorne said.
A Coast Guard spokesman in New York said all vessels boarded for security
reasons there undergo surprise inspections, according to The New York Times.
"If they're from a foreign port and trying to get into the United States,
they should know they might get boarded -- without warning," Mike Lutz told
the paper.
However, The Times reported that though the port security chief in San
Francisco, California, said vessels get notice, Capt. William J. Uberti of
the port told the paper that shippers and carriers were "not supposed to
have a clue" about random boardings.
There are currently 45 port captains overseeing the nation's 361 ports,
Coast Guard spokesman Daniel L. Temper said.
Port security has been a hot topic since the furor arising over a President
Bush-backed proposal in February to allow the British company P&O to
transfer management operations at six ports to a UAE state-owned company, DP
World.
The deal was widely criticized, especially after the Coast Guard warned in a
report of "intelligence gaps concerning the potential for DPW or P&O assets
to support terrorist operations that precludes an overall threat assessment
of the potential merger."
DP World eventually relented and said it was transferring the management
operations to a U.S. entity.
Boarding and searching ships has always been part of the duties of the Coast
Guard, even before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Coast Guard
officials say that since then, a larger percentage of the boardings are
security-related.
CNN's Mike Ahlers contributed to this report.
<http://images.clickability.com/pti/spacer.gif>
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/20/coastguard.tipoffs/index.html
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