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Coast Guard to Track Ships Using Buoys
nomrniceguy writes "The Coast Guard plans to use dozens of buoys off the U.S. coast to extend the reach of a security system that monitors large vessels heading in and out of ports. The buoys are intended to extend the network's reach -- the Guard now receives the automated data only when a vessel is within about 25 miles of a port. The floating transmitters will relay the information from hundreds of miles off shore, from the middle of Lake Superior and off coastlines from Alaska to Maine."
Not if the coast guard is using some sort of active detection system like radar. Plus the point is to spot the ships before they get close. This way we have 100 miles to intercept them instead of 25. Bananas or no, we'll know about it sooner.
I love michael's idiotic sarcasm.
What exactly is so surprising about this? They're called the US Coast Guard!!! There job is to protect the US coastlines. You should be applauding them for actually doing the job instead of creating more bureaucracy in defending the homeland.
It seems slashdot has turned into some anarchist hangout where you guys wish the authorities have no tools to do their job right.
Consider that this telemetry (or the lack of it) will be compared to all sorts of other data: expected traffic, freight schedules, communications from known friendlies... it contributes to larger pattern/abberation detection capacity.
And, as another poster indicates, radar and other surveilance will be looking, too. And ships seen out at those distances without the transponders will stick out like a sore thumb, and invite immediate (and armed) visits from the Coasties.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Shipping (especially "supertankers" is a very attractive target for terrorists. The system is largely designed to protect the ships and their ports of call. It is an expensive proposition to install these bouys but it is far cheaper than what we did to protect shipping before. In WWII we used naval escorts to protect civilian shipping as it approached our ports. In today's money this would be prohibitivly expensive.
All it takes is a single terrorist with a small plane or a small boat laden with explosives. The USS Cole disaster would be a minor inconvenience in comparison to the economic and environmental disaster caused by a supertanker being blown apart in or near a U.S. port.
If the attack were cooridinated and a number of US ports were attacked in this manner at the same time, the consiquences to the American economy would be disasterous. It could make the importation of oil grind to a halt for long enough to cause oil prices to sky-rocket and our economy to suffer.
Isn't 100 miles out considered 'international waters' ?
If it is the 100mil mark, that would mean its *none* of their damned business where my boat is..
Why keep up this slow encroachment in the name of 'security' and just tag everyone/everything and get it over with? This is getting out of hand.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
if you can do what you want in international waters, why can't they?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
RTFA: The weather service has agreed to let the Coast Guard add transmitters to about 70 buoys by 2007 They arent deploying NEW buoys they are only adding additional equipment to existing buoys.
-Kacy
Once the system has queried an approaching ship, it will either know the identity of the vessel, or the fact that it is attempting to conceal its identity (either by not responding to transponder queries or by spoofing the replies from a ship known to be elsewhere). In the second of these cases, the coast guard can intercept it. This system does not replace satellite coverage, it complements it.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If I was of a certain mind and wanted to detontate my pet nuke how would I get it into position. I would not hijack a ship, to much effort and risk. I would load it into a container and hook up a pocket GPS to the trigger.
This is something that has concerned me for a while - starting when I was motoring past a port instalation with an enormous stack of COSCO containers during a period when the US and China were rattling sabers a bit.
In case you're not familiar with it, COSCO is the Chinese Overseas Shiping COrporation - which evolved out of the Chinese Red Army.
Even a small container can contain a BIG H-bomb. Most places such containers commonly go - ports, transportaion hubs, railroads, highways, population centers - qualify as targets.
They're big enough to contain a chemical device suitable for taking out a city. Biologicals take even less space, and could disperse an aerosol while in motion.
Or you chould ship whole divisions of soldiers and their equipment in such containers (with the ones containing people disguised as refrigerated food containers to keep them at the edges of stacks for access to air and get them delivered quickly) if you wanted to stage an invasion.
However, I hear that since 9/11 and the antiterrorist reaction, US customs is inspecting and sealing many of the containers at the ports of EMbarcation, and stopping and inspecting container ships about 25 miles offshore, once they're inside the "you can enforce your antismuggling laws" limit. (You can't open the containers on shipboard, of course. But you can detect radiologicals - especially neutron emitters - without unstacking them.)
I don't know how much they're covering. (It IS a government program, after all.) But at least they're aware of the issue and trying to do what they can about it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"The US military is infamous for being trigger happy..."
No... The U.S. military is the most famous for being the most maligned by those who would rather appease and surrender. Just because they won't politely step out of the way of those who want to commit mass murder (Bosnia, Africa) like the blue-hats do, doesn't make them trigger happy. It makes them responsible when doing their job.
Nice try at your maligning attempt, though.