Maritime security2007 Maritime Security Expo: Security challenges, business opportunities

Since the 9/11 attacks, much of the attention paid to, and most of the money invested in, transportation security went to securing aviation: At first the focus was on preventing a repeat of 9/11 by concentrating on preventing people with weapons which would allow them to commandeer a plane from bringing these weapons on board. More recently, more attention began to be paid to securing luggage carried in the hull of the plane. For the last six years, legislators and security experts have complained that not enough is being done to secure ports and other aspects of maritime transportation, or land transportation — railroads and public transportation hubs.

The U.S. maritime transportation system — ports, ships, warehouses, access roads — is a vast, complex, and sprawling system which connected to an even larger and more complex global maritime transportation system. This system offers many opportunities for security-related businesses for two reasons: It is essential to the welfare and national security of the United States, and many of its nodes are vulnerable to attack and disruption. What complicates the picture even more is that such a vast system has many different stakeholders — including government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels, and thousands of private sector companies — and these stakeholders do not always agree on what needs to be done and the priorities to be set.

As JayEtta Hecker, director of Physical Infrastructure Issues at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) put it, there is an agreement on one fact: Ports are inherently vulnerable to terrorist attacks because of their size, generally open accessibility by water and land, location in metropolitan areas, the amount of material being transported through ports, and the ready transportation links to many locations within U.S. borders. This means that the United States faces a difficult task in providing effective security across the nation’s port system. What adds to the difficulty is the fact that not all ports are the same. Some ports have developed in a way which makes tightening of security relatively easily, but many ports are extensive in size and have dispersed enterprises intertwined with such security concerns as public roadways and bridges, large petrochemical storage facilities, unguarded access points, and a need for ready access on the part of thousands of workers and customers. Some ports have also been built close to downtown areas or residential sections of town. Hovering over all