I’m not blaming the Coast Guard, I’m blaming the naive belief that we can possibly create an inpenetrable border over our more than 12,000 km of land boundaries and 19,000 km of coastline.
Why bring this up? Well, just yesterday, the US Coast Guard boarded Tiger Woods’ honeymoon yacht (ironically named Privacy) in port at San Juan Harbor, Puerto Rico. Seems the captain neglected to notify officials 96 hours in advance that the 498 ton vessel (!) was coming into port — a new regulation for ships over 300 tons. So, the ship was in port when a routine harbor patrol noticed the ship and noted that it was not expected to be there. There’s no indication in the story of how long the ship was in the harbor before the patrol boat “noticed” and sent in an armed boarding crew. (We’ll leave the imagined stories about what the Coast Guardsmen discovered when they hit the master bedroom to Jon Stewart.)
The response from the Coast Guard spokesman was unusually honest for a government official, when he said:
…the advance notice provision and routine patrols do not prevent the occasional ship from slipping by.
“That’s certainly an issue we’re working on,” Russell said. “You’ve got to understand there are 361 ports and 95,000 miles of coastline [not sure about this number-- ed.] and while we’d certainly like to know everything that’s approaching the United States, we’re not quite there yet.”
So, they can’t guarantee that a 155′ yacht will be detected entering into a busy port, docking and beginning to refuel its 12,000 gallon tank. Yet our president and Il Duce of Homeland Security want us to feel secure because they make my 65 year-old mother take off her shoes at the airport before flying to West Palm Beach.
How big was the boat that blew up the USS Cole?
