How Secure Are Our Ports?
With the Department of Homeland Security recently announcing 100 percent of passengers on U.S. flights are undergoing checks against government watch lists, along with new invasive security checks, there have been a series of swift changes under the Transportation Security Administration that affect millions of U.S. travelers.
Maritime security has also undergone changes following the attacks on September 11, 2001, but critics remain concerned much is being overlooked for our nation’s port security.
In recent years politicians have attempted to pass legislation mandating that more containers in U.S. ports undergo inspection. Due to high costs and difficulties in examining all containers, such measures have not been passed.
“Obviously there is a concern of what is coming into the United States and how it’s being examined,” said Bob Hamer, a retired FBI agent.
Hamer’s last assignment was Operation Smoking Dragon, lasting from 2002 to 2005. Through sales of counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes and tax stamps, the FBI learned about many of the funding sources helping to finance terrorism through the transport of items via Southern California ports.
“A lot of the profits from these counterfeit cigarettes were, particularly, going to support Hezbollah and Hamas,” said Hamer. “The whole thing began with counterfeit cigarettes. It eventually evolved into something much greater than that.”
Operation Smoking Dragon also unveiled North Korea’s production of ”supernotes” – counterfeit 100-dollar bills that were central to the plot of a Hollywood film, Rush Hour 2, but a serious real-life concern.
The University of Southern California’s National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) assesses and makes recommendations regarding security risks in Southern California, which is home to two of the largest ports in the world.
“What we advise the port to do is how to manage the resources that are available locally to minimize the threat of an attack,” said Dr. Isaac Maya, director of research at the center.
I am surprised that al Qaeda has not used our ports to smuggle in terrorists, their equipment, or dangerous chemicals into this country. Even the ships could be used as a weapon. All they would have to do is try and blow up a natural gas tanker in a major American port and the effect would be like setting off a small nuclear bomb in an American city. And, with security even worse in overseas ports, it wouldn’t be hard for terrorists to either hijack a ship or sink it not long after it leaves a foreign port.
We are living on borrowed time here and the sooner the ship owners take ship security more seriously (i.e., protecting their own ships from terrorists and pirates, another growing threat), the sooner the risk of losing one of these large merchant ships to bad guys will go down. It all starts with the ship owners and the amount of security they are willing to put on board their own ships. That and also doing a closer inspection of the cargo going on to the ships in overseas ports. Taking those measures would significantly reduce the danger of a major incident occurring in one of our major ports.
With the heightened focus on our borders and airports, we often forget the other avenues terrorists may employ against us. Our ports and railway systems are two areas that require greater (and more effective) security precautions than are currently in place.
My concern is that economic factors will always trump security concerns, but clearly a balance between security and the availability of essential products also needs to be maintained. Aside from the cost, trying to search every container entering the country would cause serious delays in the dissemination of essential materiel.
Thanks, Reut, for another excellent article (and video) highlighting a problem that is too often overlooked by the public.
The first indispensable step must be to fire that clown, Homeland Security Director Nepolitano.
I agree that lack of adequate security at our ports is a gaping hole in our defenses that are none too solid in any area—land, sea, or air, but in which air has so far gotten almost all of the attention.
In terms of air travel security, the answer is to “profile” like hell, to do “good police work.” If the massive evidence shows—as it does—that today’s terrorists are overwhelmingly Muslims and overwhelmingly young male ones at that, then people from the Middle East and of Middle East extraction, especially young males, are who we should be focusing our attention and resources on, not arthritic grannies from Iowa, disabled 60 or 70 year olds with ostomy bags (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news/), or kids from North Dakota in strollers.
Our land borders with Canada and Mexico are porous, and until we really, effectively secure them any rational person could not believe that we have taken even the minimal steps necessary to protect ourselves from land-based terrorism and, in the case of Mexico, from foreign incursions and de facto invasion and control over our sovereign territory. For example, those sections of Arizona national parks that are now closed and effectively off limits to Americans (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/18/federal-lands-arizona-travel-warnings-place/); the problems aren’t being fixed, the government just erects warning signs warning off citizens from entering those sections by spelling out the dangers they are likely to encounter from Mexican drug dealers and illegal alien smugglers who effectively control these areas of what used to be U.S. territory.
As for the sea portion of our security, the main problem is posed by the sheer volume of ocean traffic and the tens of thousands of containers that enter our shores and harbors and rivers each day–as of a 2005 government Report an estimated 11 million containers unloaded on our shores each year, and probably many more now (http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/trade/cargo_security/csi/csi_strategic_plan.ctt/csi_strategic_plan.pdf), with articles saying that a small fraction, something like 5 or 6% of those containers, are inspected. I have read of radiation detectors that have been set up at some of our ports but, somehow, we will have to find a way to know just want is heading our way by sea, and to inspect many more of those containers than just 5 or 6 percent of them.
This week though, Secretary Nepolitano has declared that Homeland Security is not building a fence on our Mexican border, hunting down all the people who killed one of our border patrol agents along the border in Arizona this week, reclaiming our sovereign territory from Mexican banditos, putting an end to the reported very frequent incursions into the U.S. by Mexican military units or, now, over flights of our territory by Mexican surveillance drones (http://abcnews.go.com/US/mexican-drone-crashes-el-paso-backyard-ntsb-investigating/story?id=12421782), not focusing either on gathering intelligence about and carefully patting down and interrogating potential Muslim terrorists at our airports, or bending all their efforts on devising a way to inspect more containers transported to our ports by sea, but, instead, that Homeland Security is focusing its forces on “environmental justice” and on battling “Global Warming” (http://weaselzippers.us/2010/12/17/napolitano-says-dhs-to-begin-battling-global-warming-as-homeland-security-issue/) .
“The first indispensable step must be to fire that clown, Homeland Security Director Nepolitano.”
That won’t happen until we fire her boss.
Take my word for it…Maritime Security is a farce.
The DHS and it’s step-child the Coast Guard have made all US Merchant Mariners obtain TWIC (Transportation Workers Identification Credential), cards, but this is a joke since most cargo arrives on these shores in Flag of Convenience bottoms, which carry foreign crews.
Ergo, their precious TWIC cards are just another “feel good” boondoggle that generates money for the contractor.
The only thing keeping something particularly nasty from landing at one of our seaports and getting transported inland by road or by rail is our enemies’ lack of imagination or will.
I could go into this in detail, but on the OpSec principle of “Loose Lips Sink Ships”, I’ll leave it at that.
“I could go into this in detail, but on the OpSec principle of “Loose Lips Sink Ships”, I’ll leave it at that.”
I wish more people had your good sense.
I’m pretty sure the terrorists have not overlooked or forgot the ports of entry into the United States. I don’t know what they’re waiting for but with as many ports, large and small, that are available and the amount of cargo that is moved on a daily basis in and out of the US it’s just a matter of time. Again, the government is not looking at the head of the snake. We can stop attempt after attempt at our ports but until the leadership of the terrorists is destroyed we are not winning. A few predator strikes in Pakistan or Afghanistan is not going to do the job. We need boots on the ground and wipe these people out, kill them, their sons, brothers, uncles, and their families if necessary.