Maritime | Port Security

The leaders of the Senate Homeland Security Committee welcomed news from the GAO that trade sanctions against Iran seem to be working to limit that country’s ability to support nuclear and terror activities.

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT), ranking member Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) hailed a new report issued by the Government Accountability Office on Feb. 1, which they said showed progress in isolating Iran through trade sanctions.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Savannah, GA, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Jan. 30 with the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) agreeing to share radio communications.

The agreement, said CBP, is part of a continued partnership between CBP and civilian law enforcement agencies that share radio communications to enhance security between the groups.  Through a DHS grant, said CBP, GPA bought a system that will allow both CBP and GPA to communicate directly through a radio frequency at GPA-regulated terminals.

The U.S. Coast Guard has announced that it updated its counter-piracy Directive 104-6 for the fifth time on Dec. 30, 2011 and that this latest version “provides a revised and updated list of designated high risk waters and areas,” says a Coast Guard notice posted in the Federal Register on Jan. 30.

The City of Los Angeles has become the largest U.S. city to meet the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s tsunami readiness standards.

NOAA said on Jan. 27 that the city is "Stormready" and "TsunamiReady." The two voluntary community storm and disaster-readiness programs are grassroots programs sponsored by NOAA, developed to prepare and warn citizens about severe weather, flooding and tsunami threats.

Russian citizens can travel to the island of Guam without a visa, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Jan. 26.

CBP said the new visa rules are the results of a November decision by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano that allows CBP more discretionary “parole authority” on a case-by-case basis for Russian nationals traveling to Guam, which is an unincorporated U.S. territory .

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers working the international crossing at Ambassador Bridge in Detroit knew something was amiss when they noticed a man riding a bicycle in the Michigan cold in the cargo lanes leading into their checkpoint.

They wound up detaining Stephon Jones, 44, at the Fort Street Cargo Facility on Jan. 18 for an outstanding warrant for parole violation. Officers processing commercial trucks noticed a strange sight as a figure, later determined to be Jones, headed down a closed primary lane on a bicycle, said CBP.

The U.S. Coast Guard has issued a draft of a document which it calls a “Navigation and Inspection Circular,” or NVIC, under which it spells out the procedures it proposes to follow when inspecting a vessel that seeks entry into the Maritime Security Program. The Maritime Security Program establishes a fleet of commercially viable and militarily useful vessels that could help meet national defense and other security requirements. That program was authorized by the Maritime Security Act of 1996.