Remarks by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at the National Marine Manufacturers Association American Boating Congress

Release Date: April 28, 2008

Washington, D.C.

Chuck Rowe: Good morning. As many of you know, I'm Chuck Rowe. I'm the chairman of the NMMA. I want to welcome you to the 2008 American Boating Congress. We're fortunate today to have distinguished Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff addressing this opening session of the 2008 American boating Congress.

A sunny September morning several years ago forever changed the way we view our security and our place in the world. The nation has since mobilized to secure the U.S. homeland against threats and hazards. Our challenge is to find effective ways to manage this risk while preserving the right to access our waterways. The hundreds of thousand of employees who comprise the U.S. boating industry and live and work in each 50 states believe our homeland security is an important matter.

We are proud to work alongside valued partners like the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. coast Guard, the national Association of State Boating Law Administrators, to ensure that our waterways are open, secure, and boaters are responsible users. NMMA has promoted the American Waterways Watch Program at our boat shows produced in top markets around the country. In that program, boaters play a key part in waterway security, acting as eyes and ears on the water that report suspicious and unlawful activities to local law enforcement and the coast guard.

I know that Secretary Chertoff has an important message today, and we're very honored to welcome him. Ladies and gentlemen, Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Secretary Chertoff: Thank you very much for that kind introduction and thank you very much for the invitation to address you. I have to say this is an oddly configured room. I don't know if it is secure. I'm going to wind up with a neck brace by the time I'm done. But I do appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. I know also this is not a very good boating day, so you're not sacrificing anything by being indoors listening to me, unlike Saturday which was, I think, probably a wonderful day.

You all know that there is of course a real connection between the security issues we confront at the department, and boating. Even though 9/11 involved aircraft, before 9/11 there was in fact the Cole bombing, and before the Cole bombing there was the attempted bombing of the U.S.S. Sullivan. Both of those attacks were -- a boarded attack on the one carried out attack - involving using boats, small boats, as waterborne improvised explosive devices to carry out attacks against American war ships.

So this is not merely the question of a theoretical threat, but it's the question of a threat that has already come to pass. And we have to, therefore, accept the reality that there is a risk to our security that comes from someone misusing a boat for terrorist purposes and that we have to therefore consider how we re going to confront that risk.

As with all risks, there's no guarantee against it. Or, to put it a different way, the only way to really guarantee the risk could never come to pass would be to ban the activity outright, which I hasten to add we have no intention of doing. But that's of course true of anything. A way to avoid the possibility of highjackers of airplanes would simple be to avoid air travel. A way to avoid auto accidents would be to ban automobiles. We don't do that in society. What we do is we try not to eliminate the risk but to manage the risk. To reduce the risk to a reasonable level at a reasonable cost, recognizing that that's not an insurance against anything ever happening, but believing that is the right way to strike the balance between the danger we seek to avoid and the activity - the lawful activity - which we want to promote.

And so the key themes about what I want to talk to you about today regarding our strategy with respect to small boats does revolve around these basic freedoms. Managing risk, balancing what we do, and, most important, acting in partnership. Recognizing that there are simply too many boats, too many boaters, and too many potential targets to think that this is a risk that can be managed only through the activities of the federal government or the activities of government in general. It is in fact the activities of all of us, the network of anybody who uses the waterways that is a principle element of the defense against somebody who wants to misuse the waterways. And so it is partnership that is at the cornerstone of our strategy.

So, first let me try to lay out the various types of threats we're concerned about with respect to small boats. Because there are really four different and distinct types of dangers that we need to address with our strategy. The first, as I said, was a small boat or a small vessel as a waterborne IED. We know that in addition to the Cole and the Sullivan, there have been targeted attacks against an oil tanker, the Lindbergh, which was a French oil tanker that was attacked several years ago. We also know that there have been plans and that there's the possibility of attacks by small boats on oil platforms, passenger vessels, and infrastructure in ports itself. In fact, when the Lindbergh was attacked off the coast of Yemen, it was a 90,000 barrel cargo spill - cargo oil spill - into the Gulf of Aden. So there was also an environmental catastrophe as well as a loss of life and the loss of the vessel itself.

So that's the first thing, perhaps most commonly consider risk that comes from small boats. But the second possibility is a small vessel used to smuggle weapons into the United States. Now, what we're obviously most concerned about are weapons of mass destruction. And, as you know, we've put a considerable amount of effort over time in building the capability to detect and prevent smuggling radioactive materials in cargo containers. But, it's foolish to assume that the only way somebody could bring a weapon of mass destruction or a radioactive weapon into the country by sea would be to load it into a big container. What they could also do would be to charter an ocean-going yacht and smuggle it in that way. And there again, I don't have to rely simply upon imagination, because we know that boats have been used to smuggle narcotics into this country for decades. So, this is again, certainly as a threat vector, it is one that has succeeded in the past and therefore it's one that we have to consider might be easily adapted for purposes other than just smuggle narcotics and contraband.

Again, this is a question of balance. Because we put so much effort into focusing on avoiding the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction in containers, I think there's been a tendency to undervalue or give too little consideration to the possibility of a small boat as an alternative way to smuggle that weapon of mass destruction through the maritime domain.

And that's why, again, part of our small boat strategy is to look at the small boat as smuggling vector. I should add as well that we're looking at general aviation for the same reason, and that's why in tandem with the efforts that we're making to address the maritime domain and security, we are also in the process of rolling out general aviation regulations that will give us greater visibility and the capability of standing and inspecting private aircraft that fly over the Atlantic or over the Pacific that could themselves become the vehicles for struggle in a weapon of mass destruction into the country.

By the same token, of course, there's the possibility of a small vessel being used to smuggle a terrorist into the United States. Here, again, I think we've done a good job of raising the barrier to entry through our ports of entry, through our airports and through our seaports of entry if a terrorist wanted to come into the United States. But as you know, we've had a greater struggle getting security and getting control of security in those areas of our coast and our boarder that are between the ports of entry.

Here, again, a lot of the public force has been particularly on the Southwest boarder. Between California and Texas, where we obviously have a lot of traffic that comes across, although we are in the process of building infrastructure that will diminish that flow. But you also know that there are hundred and hundreds of miles of coast that are bordered by water and not by land, which are also areas where people can be smuggled in. And here again I don't have to rely on my imagination because we are constantly intercepting migrants seeking to come into the United States by using small boats or rafts or other vessels and crossing the sea.

So a third threat we're considering in this small boat strategy is the possibility of a small vessels being used to smuggle terrorists into the U.S. And finally is the possibility of s small vessel, not as an IED itself, but as a platform from which a standoff weapon could be launched, like a rocket propelled grenade or something of that sort. Just last week, for example, a Japanese Oil tanker was fired on by a small vessel of the coat of Yemen, leaving a whole from which hundred of gallons of fuel leaked. And we can certainly envision the possibility of a boat being a stand off platform for attacking either a fix port facility or a cargo or oil tanker in a port, or our a passenger ship from which passengers were disembarking.

So that -- those are the natures of the threats that we are considering, that we are addressing as part of this strategy. And making it particularly difficult to address these threats is the fact that we don't have a complete operation picture of the domestic and international recreational boating public, their travel patterns, and the facilities that they use. And we also don't have complete information on fishing fleets and small commercial vessels that operate in or near U.S. waters. While we've made tremendous strides in port and cargo security and protecting our coastal and inland waterways, I can't say we have reached the level of security with respect to those areas between the ports and around the ports that I would like to see us reach.

Remember that we have over -- literally thousands of miles of coastline, 361 ports, including 8 of the world's 50 highest volume ports, and 10,000 miles of navigable waterways. Consider also that in our ports, side by side, we have huge cargo vessels, huge container vessels, in sometimes small marinas. I've been in the combined port of Los Angeles and Long Beach. It's a huge port in which one sees enormous vessels carrying all kinds of cargo, some of it valuable, some of it hazardous, and then commingled in that port area are marinas at which a person can simply get in a boat and operate and move among all of those large vessels that are part of the channel of that combined port.

According to a 2007 U.S. Coast Guard study of 9 U.S. ports, there were approximately 3,000 small commercial vessels, 3,000 fishing vessels, and 400,000 recreational vessels in the vicinity of important maritime infrastructure in this country. In fact, there are an estimated 13 million registered recreational vessels in the U.S. and according to Coast Guard and industry statistics, about another 1 million unregistered vessels. So we have a lot of people, we have a lot of boaters, we have a lot of boats, we have a lot of infrastructure that is valuable and could be targeted. And we do not have a complete and granular operation picture of how all of those elements intersect. And when you add that lack of a comprehensive operational picture, together with a demonstrated ability and intent of terrorists to use the maritime domain as a way to attack western interests, what adds up is that we have some serious security gaps that we need to close.

So now we come back to the partnership issue, and that's of course reinforced because of the statistics I've given you about the number of vessels that are operating in the United States. We recognize that a critical part of the pleasure of boating is the freedom to operate in a non-bureaucratic environment. I mean, if you want to have a lot of bureaucratic activity you can be in the office. If you want to get out on the waterway, you want to enjoy a relaxed opportunity to be out in the sun and on the water.

So what we're not about doing here is imposing a lot of strict rules and regulations on the majority of law-abiding boaters. What we want to do is expand our capabilities, Coast Guard and Customs and Boarder Protection, and other similar law enforcement agencies by engaging and networking the thousands of eyes and ears of the nations boating community to help us deter and prevent the small percentage of dangerous people who want to harm us. In other words, we want to help you help us leverage our capability so that we can all be better off.

And that's why we launched a series of these summits last June, bringing together industry stakeholders here in Washington. And I spoke at that summit to begin to have some open and honest discussion about the threats we face and how we can work together to address and manage the risk posed by those people. We then followed up with a number of regional summits. A great lakes summit in January, a Southeastern summit last week in Orlando, or a couple weeks ago now in Orlando, Florida, and why we have additional conferences scheduled in the West Coast in May, off of Cape Cod in June, and the Gulf Coast in September.

Based on the discussions and input we've had through this summit process and through other discussions, formal and informal, I am pleased to announce that we're releasing our DHS small vessel security strategy. This is kind of a high altitude statement of what we think our statement ought to be to managing that risk. It is not, of course, the end of the process because we now have to move to the implementation plan that will get much more detailed and put some flesh on the bones of this strategy.

It is not a unilateral, top-down document. It is a effort to produce a flexible layered approach that outlines what we have to do collectively. Not just the government, but all of us collectively to enhance maritime security.  

So let me lay out the four overarching goals of the strategy. First, I begin again with the notion of strengthening partnerships. The strategy recognizes as a cornerstone that as members of the small vessel community, you have a stake in securing maritime domain. If it turns out we see bombs exploding on our waterways, it is not going to be really good for boaters, and it's not going to be really good for the boating business. And I think when you consider the impact that 9/11 had on the airlines, it doesn't take a great leap of imagination to understand the impact that a boat exploding next to a tanker would have on the boating industry. So, we all have not only a stake as citizens but there's an economic business case for being involved in this partnership to manage the risk.

We want to leverage existing leverage and outreach programs with the Coast Guard and other maritime stake holders as part of this partnership effort to manage risk. We want to increase public awareness and public incentives to report suspected terrorists or criminal activity. Now this is -- I want to emphasize how important this is, because time and again what has proven to be a great trip wire in alerting the authorities to an ongoing plot has been the fact that an individual or a citizen reports something suspicious. When we had the London - attempted - London bombing last summer, followed by the Glasgow bombing, that first vehicle bomb was discovered because an alert, I believe ambulance driver, observed something funny and called the police.

Time and again we see that common sense and that eyes on the potential problem followed up by recording as a critical element. And that's why, for example, America's Waterway Watch is so important. It's the waterborne analogue to the neighborhood watch program. It uses the Coast Guard and its reserve and auxiliary components to enlist the help of everybody who lives, works, or plays around the waterfront so that suspicious behavior is reported to the National Response Center. Let me give you an example of how that works. In 2003, a tour boat operator in Florida reported suspicious activity by one of the passengers. A call to America's Waterway Watch led to the investigation of the suspect, and eventual apprehension in New York for criminal activity. So, this is a program that works and we want to continue to make sure it is supported and grows.

The second element of what we need to do is to enhance maritime security and safety. Again, we begin with the unquestioned proposition that the vast majority of boaters pose no risk. But, the more we know about vessels, and who owns and operates them and for what purposes, the better and the more easily we can identify that small minority of criminals or terrorists who might seek to use small vessels to their advantage. In other words, a little more information allows us to target more precisely the people that we all ought to be worried about as opposed to taking a kind of a broad gauged, sweeping approach, which actually winds up inconveniencing more people.

And therefore we want to continue to build and improve the ways in which we analyze and share information to identify threats. Let me give you some examples of some of the data streams that we currently use and we want to build upon. There's the CBP Pleasure Boat Reporting System, the Coast Guard's Vessel Identification System, and the Coast Guard's Marine Information for Safety and Law Enforcement. There's NOAA's Office of Law Enforcement Vessel Monitoring System, which currently tracks over 5,900 small vessels. And there's NOAA's Law Enforcement Accessible Database System, which tracks investigations, incidents, activities and outreach. Building and integrating this kind of information as well as other intelligence sources, information from the State Department, from foreign governments, and the use of trusted-traveler programs will give us a better picture of who is out there and allow us to be more focused on who we need to be concerned about.

Part of that's going to involve the improvement of reporting procedures and compliance. For example, right now advanced data for international traffic entering our waters, like the 96 hour Notice of Arrival Rule, is required for large vessels only. We need to consider whether we need to reduce the tonnage requirement for those who fall within that kid of rule, so that the Coast guard and Customs and Border Protection can have a broader picture of the traffic entering internationally into our domestic waters, therefore enabling them to conduct a risk-based analysis and focus on smaller vessels which we might need to make sure we inspect before they approach a port or make landing outside of a port area.

The third area of our strategy is leveraging technology, because using technology gives us a real value add in our ability to identify, pursue and respond to threats. Again, we don't want to track every little boat out there on the waterways. But we do want to explore options with respect to surveillance and traffic, particularly in high-risk critical infrastructure areas. For example, if you're in the area of a nuclear power plant that's sitting on the water, we're going to rightfully be a little more interested in who's cruising around out there than if you're off of Sandy Hook fishing out by the Ambrose lighthouse. So, we're not looking to comprehensive, have big brother on sea, but we do need to start to look at some of the areas of risk to make sure we have a visibility to who's moving around in those areas.

That's why we want to expand investment and research into things like small vehicle identification systems. Perhaps transponders or GPS devices or cell-phone based recognition systems. These, by the way, would have some safety benefits as well as some security advantages. Equally, we'd like to expand research and development into methods of protecting critical infrastructure and key resources at the shorelines using different kinds of small vessel barriers, warning devices, and non-lethal deterrents. And we want to improve our capabilities to distinguish between intentional and innocent intrusions into security and safety zones.

One thing which we are doing along these lines is we're operating a pilot program up in the state of Washington to see what our capability is to have stand-off detection technology for radioactive or nuclear material on small vessels entering a port area. So that, for example, vessels coming into the channel entering into a port area would pass by detection devices. They wouldn't have to stop. And those detection devices would be configured to determine whether or not there are radioactive admissions of a kind that are associated with a possible dirty bomb or nuclear device. This is in the pilot stage. We're actually currently testing it in the state of Washington. And it's one of the kinds of technique's we're thinking about using here to increase our security in a way that won't impede the flow of traffic, because it won't be intrusive or won't require you to stop while we come on board the vessel, but it will allow us when we do detect the signature of radiation or radioactive material on a vessel, and at that point, to say that that the vessel has to be, maybe, brought to a halt and boarded so that it can be subjected a closer inspection.

Finally, we want to work as part of the strategy to continue to enhance our coordination and communication among all of our partners. This means not only domestic partners, obviously but foreign partners as well. So, within our own department we are cross training between Customs, and Border Protection and Coast Guard so that we can leverage the capabilities of both components across each of them. We can have customs and boarder control personal who can do inspections that satisfy both Coast Guard's and Custom's requirements, and vice versa. We wanted to continue to do that kind of cross training with state and local personnel as well, because that then further multiplies our effectiveness.

And finally, to the extent we can with respect to those foreign countries that operate adjacent to our water, do the same kind of partnering that will further leverage and increase our ability to have an umbrella of protection around our waterways. So, this strategy is obviously -- I'm not deeply into the weeds, but I think it does give you a high level sense of what our approach is. It's an approach which is designed to be reasonable but it is also designed to make sure that we are not avoiding dealing with what is an undeniable threat simply because it is a challenging threat to deal with and difficult to get your arms around.  I think a combination of partnership, integration of information, technological advances such as the ones I've described that we're currently piloting in the state of Washington regarding nuclear detection - I think all of this brought together will raise the level of security for our maritime domain, both our ports and the areas between the ports, without compromising the essence of the joy of boating. And that's a win-win for everybody. So I want to thank you very much for you participation in the summits that we've had, the summits that we're going to have, and your recognition that - not only as citizens, but from the standpoint of the business case - security and efficiency and freedom all go hand in hand. It's going to be better for the people who enjoy your products if they can do so with confidence that we are maintaining not only a safe environment, but a secure environment over the years to come. Thank you very much.

Secretary Chertoff: I think I have time for a few questions if someone will give me the hook when I have to go to the next event. So if you just, you have a question, tell me who you are and -- yes?

Question: I've attended the summit (inaudible) for the Baltimore Harbor Security (inaudible) involved in the community. And as you correctly pointed out, the most effective tool is reporting by citizens and we have this tool called the American Waterways Watch that I would be willing to bet you could count on one hand in this room of professionals if anybody knows the number.

Secretary Chertoff: I would not take that bet. I bet you're right.

Question: We could have a 9-1-1 type of thing that would be a whole lot easier.

Secretary Chertoff: That's a really good idea, actually. I don't know who manages the number but that's a very good idea. It should be like a 3 digit easily remember number. That's great. I'm going to take that back. Yes?

Question: You mentioned in your --

Secretary Chertoff: Can we just ask if you would just identify yourself?

Question: I'm Gene Clark from Monny Marine Group. And my question is, in your technology phase you mentioned a number of different possibilities, both stand-off as well as on board, and I was wondering if you have any kind of projection as to who might pay for any kind of on board technology that you decide to acquire. The government payment, or would it be upon the boaters themselves?

Secretary Chertoff: I think it's a little hard for me to speculate because we haven't settled on something yet. I think it would probably depend on what we're talking about. If it's something like a cell phone capability that you have, it's probably very inexpensive. It's an RFID tag - it's probably very inexpensive. I don't think the government is going to pay to fit vessels out with transponders and things of that sort. I doubt, however, that we're talking about pleasure boats, other than very large pleasure boats, getting that kind of transponder. And obviously we're talking about commercial vessels. If we were to lower, for example, the gross tonnage requirements from what they currently are to, let's say, half of that, or somewhat below that on commercial vessels that are ocean going, that might be a cost that we would expect a commercial vessel to bear. Yes?

Question: (Inaudible) Ohio. We are having some issues (inaudible) Coast Guard, what I would call harassment inspection (inaudible) Homeland Security. (Inaudible)

Secretary Chertoff: Did you say harassment?

Question: Correct. (Inaudible) inspections. Stop three times in one day by the same patrol group.

Secretary Chertoff: Whenever I get individual complaints about something, all I can say is this. First of all, I have an enormous amount of respect for the professionals from the Coast Guard and I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. Obviously, I always expect them to be polite. I don't expect anybody ever to be rude. On the other hand, like with any other police or law enforcement activity, if they have reason to believe they need to look at something, they have to do that. And whether it's a matter of safety or a matter of security, you know, that's their primary mission. But I'm sure that Admiral Allen is obviously always open if there's some misconduct. I know he's very tough on that kind of thing so he will, I'm quite sure, clamp down if there's any harassment or unjustified activity. All right. You probably want to get out on the water. Thank you very much for you attentiveness and thanks for your cooperation.

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This page was last reviewed/modified on April 28, 2008.