Thread: BORDER PATROL: All-seeing eyes focus on the sea

BY MARK MUCKENFUSS
STAFF WRITER
August 23, 2013; 06:04 PM
pe.com


MASTER SGT. JULIE AVERY, AIR NATIONAL GUARD/CONTRIBUTED IMAGE
The Air and Marine Operations Center on March Air Reserve Base is testing a system to monitor ships and boats to detect smugglers and possible terrorists.. The center already tracks aircraft.

For 25 years, one of the nerve centers for the nation’s airspace has been in Riverside’s backyard. The Air and Marine Operations Center at March Air Reserve Base tracks planes flying in and out of the country as well as domestic flights.

Now, officials there have set their sights on the sea.

The center, operated by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, is a mass of computer banks reminiscent of NASA’s Mission Control. An 8-by-45-foot, high-definition television screen is spread across its front wall. The center can track as many as 50,000 aircraft at any moment.

It’s basically a clearing house for radar and intelligence information, working with — and supplying information to — a host of security and law enforcement agencies. Officials say the center has reduced illegal cross-border flights from thousands per year in the mid-1980s to a handful. Initially, the focus was on drug trafficking. The surveillance has expanded over the years to include human trafficking, the smuggling of counterfeit products, and terrorist activities.

The center now is testing software that will allow similar scrutiny of maritime traffic. The system would tap into existing radar and photo surveillance and incorporate newer state-of-the-art equipment to provide a comprehensive view of marine vessels within 100 miles of the U.S. coastlines. The omniscient view allows for greater coordination of agencies that might respond to a potential emergency.

Steve Savala, a detection enforcement officer, said the program won’t officially go into use for another year, in October 2014. The center started working on the system in December.

“They gave it to us early, so we could develop it from the bottom up,” Savala said.

Savala said he and others are in the testing phase. Two weeks ago, they started a 60-day test of a Carlsbad-based radar built by Terma, a company based in Virginia. Most shoreline radar systems have a range of three to four miles, Savala said. This unit can detect objects up to 20 miles offshore.

If the radar provides the kind of data Savala is looking for, the center will work out an agreement to use the device in the future.

He also expects to gather data and photos from smaller radar and automatic cameras already being used by various agencies along the coasts. Some plane-based radar also will be used on the southern and eastern coasts.

The center is using a computer program designed by SRI International, in Menlo Park. But putting a system together requires more than software, center spokeswoman Tina Pendell said.

“We need to reach out to all of these entities that already have these radars and make them aware they can feed that to us,” Pendell said. “It’s all about finding the right system and getting all the people to agree on the process. There is a lot of momentum behind it. People really do want to see something like this happen.”

Part of that momentum, Savala said, is a result of increased maritime smuggling. Because the center pretty much shut down the airways to traffickers, he said, criminals are finding other avenues.

“We’ve forced them to look at other ways, and where we’re seeing the increase is with boats,” he said. “The threat has increased tremendously on the maritime side.”

The center’s director, Tony Crowder, said the agency currently receives some maritime information from a multi-agency task force looking at traffic in the Caribbean. He said he believes the new system eventually will be as comprehensive as the air tracking. His people, he said, will simply be the facilitators.

“This is going to be a team effort,” Crowder said, mentioning such agencies as the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Patrol’s Office of Field Operations, and the Coast Guard.

Since the center is tied in with various law enforcement agencies, when a suspicious boat approaches the shore, “we could have a receiving committee at the beach,” he said.

Savala said it is too early to know when such a system might be up and running.

“We have the air picture down to a science,” he said. “We’re trying to mirror that as much as we can to get a maritime system. Once we get this up and going, we’ll have everything.”

http://www.pe.com/local-news/riversi...on-the-sea.ece

Originally Posted by detection enforcement officer Steve Savala

We have the air picture down to a science. We’re trying to mirror that as much as we can to get a maritime system. Once we get this up and going, we’ll have everything.

Everything, that is, except control of traffic on the ground, which is virtually non-existent in some places, apparently by design. In many other places, CBP agents are ordered to stand down, except when they are allowed to play catch-and-release for funsies, no keeps.

Playing games - utter foolishness on a national scale. But immigration law non-enforcement is utter insanity to protect against invasion, human trafficking, drug, gun, and counterfeit money smuggling, epidemics of leprosy and tropical diseases... not to mention Is|amist terrorism.

Don't forget, there are only 18 more days until the anniversary of 9/11. Remember Benghazi!