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Spring 2014 Proceedings
www.uscg.mil/proceedings
to ensure compliance with safety and fsheries regulations
that can only be monitored underway. These law enforce-
ment activities contribute to important deterrent and safety
regimes that conserve critical fsheries stocks and reduce
the number of instances where search and rescue assistance
may be required.
From Stovepipes to Partnerships
As the Department of Homeland Security continues to
mature and increase its ability to provide for the safety
and security of the nation, the Coast Guard and its sister
components have found new, innovative ways to cooperate
and coordinate efforts across their broad and often overlap-
ping areas of responsibility to fll security gaps and elimi-
nate redundancies. Gone are the days where DHS agencies
expended duplicate efforts and operated largely in isolation.
Now, the cooperation needed to protect the nation and facili-
tate success is routine and occurs at multiple levels.
Moreover, DHS components develop joint strategies and
policies to establish national priorities and guide operations.
Operational cooperation coalesces at joint commands such
as joint operations centers, regional coordinating mecha-
nisms, regional concurrence teams, air and marine opera-
tions centers, and border enforcement security taskforces.
These entities bring together the appropriate DHS agencies
and pull in other federal, state, local, tribal, and interna-
tional partners.
The various DHS components have developed the means
to blend their talents and agree to lead agency designations
based on authorities, capabilities, and competencies. Instead
of operating in a vacuum, the components operate via the
Maritime Operational Threat Response process to deter-
mine the lead agency, based on which one is the most logical
choice.
The analysis starts with authority. Leaders ask the question:
All other things being equal, which agency has the clear-
est and strongest authority to prosecute a case? Authorities
aside, if one agency has the better capability to place a unit
on the scene with the necessary capabilities to interdict a
suspect, lead agency will reside there. Further, lead agency
designations can and do shift as the circumstances of the
case change, if it becomes apparent that a different agency
is in a better position to take the lead.
Moving Ahead
Border safety and security is a multifaceted DHS respon-
sibility that involves operations occurring throughout
multiple missions, regions, domains, authorities, and envi-
ronments. It is based on the need to protect the country,
facilitate economic growth, and recover from disasters.
Hence, cooperation and coordination among the DHS com-
ponents to secure and expedite the fow of people and goods
is critical to success.
For the Coast Guard with its primary responsibilities in
the maritime arena, this means pushing out our borders to
detect, monitor, intercept, and stop threats as early as pos-
sible, while protecting critical maritime infrastructure in
jurisdictional waters. It also means facilitating legitimate
commerce, including maintaining an effective aids to navi-
gation system, keeping sea lanes open, protecting the port/
ocean interface, and quickly sorting and isolating poten-
tial maritime threats from legitimate commerce. The earlier
threats can be interdicted, the greater the chances of success
in negatively impacting transnational criminal organiza-
tions and gaining actionable intelligence leading to addi-
tional tactical successes. Further, when working together
effectively, tactical successes can lead to prosecutions of
higher levels of criminal organizations, with the eventual
effect of disrupting and dismantling them.
While the Coast Guard and its DHS partners can point to
many successes, not the least of which has been our ability
to prevent a terrorist attack on U.S. interests in the mari-
time arena, our job is far from done. DHS components must
remain vigilant, connected, coordinated, forward-deployed,
and positioned for action. Coast Guard assets deployed
throughout ports and waterways, maritime approaches, and
high seas stand a critical part of the DHS watch. The Coast
Guard remains as it has stood for more than 200 years, Sem-
per Paratus — always ready.
About the author:
Mr. Lou Orsini provides expert advice on law enforcement strategies,
policies, tactics, techniques, and procedures primarily involving drug and
migrant interdiction and fsheries enforcement. He ensures USCG law
enforcement strategy and policy support and are consistent with relevant
national and international considerations, requests, and requirements to
ensure effective program management.
Endnotes:
1.
The White House: Department of Homeland Security. Available at http://
georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/usbudget/budget-fy2004/home-
land.html.
2.
American Association of Port Authorities, US Port Industry. Available at www.
aapa-ports.org/Industry/content.cfm?ItemNumber=1022.
3.
Ibid.
4.
Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime: Addressing Converging Threats to
National Security. The White House, July 2011. Available at www.whitehouse.gov/
sites/default/files/microsites/2011-strategy-combat-transnational-organized-
crime.pdf.
5.
Fisheries Economics of the United States 2011: Economics and Sociocultural Status and
Trend Series. National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Dept of Commerce, NOAA
Tech Memo, NMFS-F/SPO-128, printed December 2012. Available at www.
st.nmfs.noaa.gov/Assets/economics/documents/feus/2011/FEUS%202011%20
National%20Overview.pdf.
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