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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Rooters Skeer Story: US wants search powers 2000NM from coastline |
| 2005-10-13 |
| The United States wants to search foreign ships far outside its territorial waters to stop a possible terrorist attack on the country coming from the sea, a US coastguard leader said on Wednesday. "If the threat is significant enough we will board that ship as far from our coast as we can," said Vice Admiral Harvey Johnson who is Pacific Area commander of the US coastguard. Johnson, who oversees key trade routes with Asia, told a maritime security conference in Copenhagen the policy of the United States was to "push back" its sea borders for searches as much as possible -- perhaps by as much as 2000 nautical miles. In August Washington said it planned to put sensors on oil rigs and weather buoys to spot security threats at sea and said it might use satellites to track suspect vessels. Johnson said that, from an intelligence perspective, there was ample justification to worry about a terrorist threat. "And I believe the maritime sphere will be the avenue for that threat," he said. He said if the threat level from an incoming foreign-flagged ship was deemed to be low the United States might choose to board and search it closer to home, perhaps within its own territorial waters at 12 miles. But he said he would like to be able to carry out forced searches much further from shore. Governments require permission from the flag-state to board a ship in international waters, where it is seen as sovereign territory, or risk a diplomatic row. Nations would have to agree a new legal framework to allow countries to inspect or board ships outside their own territorial waters. "I don't intend any sabre-rattling here. I'm talking from an operations perspective," he told Reuters. "I'm not trying to bring any undue international pressure to get permission to board without flag-state approval. What I do want though is enough time to interdict the vessel," he said. "Even if I did decide to board a vessel at sea, even as a three star admiral I couldn't make that decision, it goes back to Washington and it doesn't all happen in 15 seconds." Johnson said the exact parameters would be worked out with partners at a global level and within the framework of international laws of the sea. The man has common sense and is trying to protect us. Rooters, of course, wants to make it into a Big Deal in hopes of stirring up some anti-US outrage. It must rankle them that they failed to bait him into saying something incendiary or outrageous. This approach makes good security sense. Fuck Rooters. |
| Posted by:.com |
| #7 Wouldn't 2000 NM put, say, the Thames estuary in their search area? Unless the other major ocean is the one under concern. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-10-13 11:22 |
| #6 I think they mean 200 NM. Wouldn't 2000 NM put, say, the Thames estuary in their search area? |
| Posted by: mojo 2005-10-13 10:38 |
| #5 This is far too great a distance for a container nuke--my guess is a tramp converted into a missile platform. Remember that the Norks are fond of moving missiles by sea, and it wouldn't take a huge tech leap to mount a launcher in the hold. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-10-13 10:28 |
| #4 I like it Spavimp. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-10-13 10:19 |
| #3 Just use the old 'boarding to suppress the commerce of slaving' excuse. Seemed to have been more than a couple of ships that grounded carrying lots of illegals, who are all too often exploited in defacto slaving conditions. |
| Posted by: Spavimp Angase7679 2005-10-13 09:44 |
| #2 The realization has been there all along. What has taken time has been to design, build and prepare to deploy those "sensors on oil rigs and weather buoys" - among other places. It's useless - and incendiary - to start pressing the other countries to allow searches before we are ready to id the ships we think are sufficiently threatening to demand this sort of action far out at sea. As the article notes, we are asking for a major change in the law of the sea. That's the sort of thing for which you get your ducks lined up first .... One other thing: just because we don't see public action on a security threat doesn't mean the threat isn't taken seriously. I'm not saying ALL potential security risks are automatically covered despite no obvious action .... no doubt there are some that just are lower priority or have to be postponed due to limited people, funds, technology. I am saying, however, that a lot of work is going into a lot of things to address the most pressing threats. Witness the casual mention of bio-sniffers on the Mall during the anti-war protest a few weeks ago - how many of Americans even knew we had both developed these in a major R&D thrust and then deployed them in some key places??? Lots of people are working very hard on these issues. |
| Posted by: lotp 2005-10-13 08:30 |
| #1 This should be easy. If they want to send ships to our ports, they agree. If not, tough. I am glad the realization that the biggest threat we face is a nuke in a container. It is good to see action backing that up. |
| Posted by: Shater Glelet1563 2005-10-13 07:30 |