Coast Guard strengthens maritime security

WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. Coast Guard is reportedly arming its helicopters with machine guns, as well as training teams to take over a hostile ship.

The Boston Globe reported Sunday Coast Guard officers have also deployed sensors, satellites and surveillance cameras that feed into new high-tech harbor command centers.

The maritime security build up is part of a comprehensive program detailed in the Department of Homeland Security's 2006 budget plan to deter terrorists attacking the United States by sea.

"We already know that terrorists operate at sea," said James Carafano, a homeland security specialist at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation. "They haven't done it here yet, but someday they will. We don't want to wait to get prepared until the day after a Cole bombing in New York Harbor."

The economic consequences of an attack that shuts down a commercial port would be far worse than was the loss of air transit following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he said.

But it is a daunting task to monitor 95,000 miles of coastline, 361 ports, 200 daily arrivals of foreign vessels, and 76 million recreational boaters, Carafano told the Globe.