The Coast Guard will be spending at least the next three years
making up for lost time in its effort to safeguard ports and waterways,
officials said. A major challenge is figuring out how to make the
best use of new funding, considering that the agency, in recent
years, only spent 5 percent of its budget on security.
The task ahead is as overwhelming as eating an elephant one bite
at a time, said Capt. Robert Ross, the head of the Coast Guard’s
Strategic Analysis office. “We are trying to carve this elephant
up in slices that we can swallow without choking,” he told
National Defense.
The Coast Guard is under significant pressure to build up its security
operations, he added. “We got here through many, many years
of neglecting the threats that a lot of people knew were there,”
he said. “We are not going to fix these problems overnight
and it is going to take a lot of money. ... We need to take the
time and think it through, so that the money we spend, we spend
wisely.”
During the next three years, said Ross, the Coast Guard will see
growth in human and materiel resources. “We are looking at
a three-year ramp up for fiscal years ‘03, ‘04 and ‘05,”
he said. “We have capacity constraints on the training system—and
we can only buy so much stuff at a time, because we only have so
many contracting officers.”
One area of particular interest is the development of capabilities
to monitor ship crews and cargo. “We need to improve our ability
to know what is coming. We need to improve our understanding of
what is coming,” he said.
Nevertheless, it was recently reported that the Coast Guard, for
budgetary reasons, cut back the sea-marshal forces it deployed shortly
after the September 11 attacks. The Coast Guard needs an extra $228
million to keep armed reservists on active duty to board and inspect
vessels, crews and cargoes before they reach port. A special appropriation
is now awaiting congressional approval. The Coast Guard also is
seeking an additional $750 million in fiscal 2003, which begins
Oct. 1, to set up rapid-deployment teams that would board suspect
vessels approaching a U.S. port.
There are infinite targets and infinite ways of attack, Ross said.
“We have to prioritize which are the most profitable ways
to do that. ... We are not going to be able to defend from all attacks.”
The Coast Guard, he said, should not be viewed as a “cop
on the beat,” because it does not have the resources to provide
security across the board, at every port. “There is no 24-hour
waterside security. When it comes to specific facilities—for
example, nuclear facilities—the Coast Guard does not have
the resources to provide 24/7 security.”
The waterways always will present vulnerabilities, he said. “We
cannot prevent everything,” he said. “At some point
you stop building up your prevention capability and you start building
your consequence management capability. Knowing where to draw the
line still requires some analysis.”
Safe Commerce
At the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, security is the
order of the day, said Beth Rooney, security manager for the Port
Authority. The agency established an operation, called Safe Commerce,
which focuses on cargo security. Rooney and other port-security
officials spoke at a Coast Guard-sponsored symposium, in Baltimore,
Md.
The success of operation Safe Commerce does not necessarily require
high technology, she said. Mundane projects, such as adding fencing
and lighting and extra TV systems, take priority over sophisticated
gadgetry, Rooney said. “We see ourselves as an ongoing target.
... Waterways are open,” and, therefore, vulnerable.
Some advanced technologies are beginning to make their way into
the Coast Guard, although not across the board. Some law enforcement
officers are starting to arm themselves with $3,500 digital pagers
that help them run criminal backgrounds on suspects and check stolen
equipment on site.
“I can find out what boat it is, know if it is stolen, if
the registration is up to date or who the people are I am dealing
with,” said Bryan Beard, a Coast Guard law-enforcement officer.
The pager, called Cyberforce, takes about 30 seconds to produce
the data.
The Coast Guard has 1,500 of these devices, which have a range
of 12 nautical miles. The Coast Guard is also working on a satellite
link, which would expand the range beyond the line of sight, said
Beard. New York police officers began using the Cyberforce on routine
street patrols more than a year ago.
MISLE Database
The Coast Guard has been working since 1995 to develop a Web-based
information system to replace an aging computer database that it
uses to track activities such as cargo inspections, drug interdiction
and oil spill cleanups.
The new system is called the Marine Information for Safety and
Law Enforcement System, or MISLE. It was launched in December 2001,
said Lt. Cmdr. William Balsinger, who works at the MISLE operations
center. The system will support more than 5,000 users at about 550
sites.
The Coast Guard has a spotty record in fielding computer systems,
which prompted a General Accounting Office review of the MISLE program.
The GAO report was released on September 18.
According to GAO, the MISLE program has experienced cost overruns
and delays. Back in 1986, the Coast Guard began developing requirements
for replacing its legacy Marine Safety Information System (MSIS)
by 1995. In the early 1990s, the service delayed plans to replace
MSIS in order to integrate requirements for multiple systems in
a single program, according to GAO.
In 1995, the Coast Guard awarded a contract to Computer Sciences
Corporation to develop and deliver the complete MISLE system by
2002. At that time, service officials estimated the contract was
worth about $35 million. However, GAO pointed out, the requirements
changed in 1999. The service had already spent $26 million on the
development.
The same year, the Coast Guard transferred responsibility for the
MISLE development from CSC to its Operation Systems Center—a
government owned contractor-operated facility. The Coast Guard now
manages the project.
According to GAO, MISLE will cost about $61 million through 2003
and the life-cycle cost is estimated at $94 million through 2008.
“Much remains to be done to deliver the complete system,”
the report said. “In its efforts to develop and deploy a complete
MISLE system, USCG faces significant challenges and risks in several
areas, including managing system requirements and user expectations,
testing the system, transitioning to an operational system and managing
program risks.” The Coast Guard’s risk management approach
has been ineffective so far, according to GAO.
Dale Streyle, the MISLE program officer, said that the Coast Guard
implemented GAO’s recommendations and prioritizes risks on
a monthly basis.
Balsinger said that the system is working today, but limited to
basic functions such as tracking vessel inspections and oil spills.
“We are still adding things to it,” he told National
Defense. “I am not sure if we are ever going to be done, I
mean that in a good sense. There are always changes to be made.”
Because the system was developed before September 2001, the Coast
Guard did not place strong emphasis on port security, Balsinger
said. “We have to see how we can look at this system and find
ways to support our new business processes and also support our
homeland security,” Balsinger noted. “The emphasis [of
MISLE] was on safety.”
However, he added, the system is beginning to show how it can help
boost security. “Right now, for example, if a foreign vessel
is coming into port, we do a boarding matrix to determine whether
it is a high risk or low risk vessel, and decide whether we should
board it or not,” Balsinger explained. With MISLE, “we
can keep look-outs on certain vessels and do quick searches on them.”
The information collected is entered into the database. The data
only can be accessed by authorized users of the Coast Guard’s
intranet. Most of the data available today on the MISLE system is
on domestic vessels, Balsinger pointed out. “There are certain
U.S. vessels that have to go through an inspection process, and
we gather specific info,” he said. “As far as a foreign
vessel goes, we may capture the fact that it was in port. If we
physically go on board and inspect it, then we enter the information
into the system.”
By the end of the year, the Coast Guard is planning to add a geographic
information system, which would be able to point out what resources
exist in certain areas to help in rescue missions or environmental
cleanup, said Balsinger.
Although MISLE runs service-wide, some ports, such as the Houston
Ship Channel, do not use to the MISLE database for any kind of security
operations.
The Texas Regional Houston Center has seven ports, five of which
are among the 25 busiest ports in the United States, said Lt. Joseph
Leonard, from the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Unit at Galveston,
Texas. “In our entire region, we have 800-1,000 ship movements
a day,” he said. “There is no way to track all those
ships without something to coordinate it.”
Houston Ports
Right after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Houston marine safety
unit developed a database called the regional fusion center.
The center has three branches. One processes all the intelligence
received from the Coast Guard and outside agencies. The vessel targeting
division monitors vessels and crews arriving into port and determines
whether the vessels need to be inspected. The joint operations center
coordinates and manages homeland security activities.
“We don’t use MISLE at all,” he said. “It
does not give me any information I need for my job.” In less
than a year, Leonard’s office put together all the information
available and consolidated it into an easily accessible database,
he said. “We did not spend any money on it,” he noted.
“Other than the salary of the people manning it, there was
no additional cost incurred.”
“We tried to keep it as simple as possible,” said Daniel
Buchsbaum of the Marine Safety Unit in Galveston.
“There are 47 ports in the United States and 47 different
ways of doing things,” Buchsbaum said. If every port managed
to improve security on its own, he said, there would be less pressure
on the Coast Guard to develop a national strategy.
“You can have all the intelligence in the world, but unless
you have the resources to respond to it, it is no good,” said
Leonard.
He stressed that the Coast Guard needs to be able to see and react
to suspect tugs, barges and passenger boats. “We can’t
see them,” he said. For example, Lake Charles has more than
90 miles of nautical waterways and only one boat patrols the entire
area.
In Galveston Bay, security cameras were installed some time ago,
but they only cover one straight line, leaving large areas without
any surveillance, Leonard explained.
He noted that video cameras would be one tool to enhance security,
but they are very expensive to buy, install and maintain. “There
is no one thing to solve the awareness gap.”
Security experts generally agree that the waterways are vulnerable
to terrorism. Any attacks would have disastrous ripple effects on
the economy, said Ross. “We do not even want to think about
it.”