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(C) SID Support to the US Coast Guard
FROM:
Coast Guard Account Manager
Run Date: 08/04/2003
(C) The Signals Intelligence Directorate has supported the USCG for many years and looks
forward to an even more robust relationship now that the Coast Guard is an SCE (Service
Cryptologic Element) and SID partner. As you could imagine, in the post 9/11 world, information
on threats, particularly those against U.S. maritime borders, ports, or the nation's waterways is
of the highest interest to the USCG. The USCG uses ELINT and Specific Emitter Identification
(SEI) information currently provided by the MATCHLIGHT database to help identify threats to
the U.S. in the form of maritime vessels or cargos. This database is maintained by SID's
Maritime Analysis Cell, and contains all SEI information received-- whether collected by moving
platforms or by eyes-on-target at maritime choke points. USCG may also use this information,
fused with other USCG data, to pursue its domestic and law enforcement missions.
(C) We can trace the beginnings of the SID-Coast Guard interaction to around 1989 when the
USCG, as a member of the Joint Interagency Task Force-West (JIATF-West, located at Coast
Guard Island in Alameda, CA) first received signals intelligence support. This support took the
form of SANDKEY reporting, which includes Narclites, tippers, and HFDF (High Frequency
Direction Finding) information from MRSOC and other SANDKEY participants. This data is used
to identify and locate narcotics traffickers and their shiploads of narcotics so they can be
detained and/or arrested and their illegal cargo seized. In an example from late June 2003,
SID's Commercial Ship Tracking Cell in Denver provided tracking support to GCHQ, JIATF-South
(in Key West, Florida), and the USCG that led to the HMS IRON DUKE's seizure of a drugcarrying cargo ship north of Venezuela. This ship contained 3,930 kilos of pure cocaine with a
New York City street value of $196,500,000.
(C) SID also provides the USCG intelligence in the form of serialized SIGINT product reporting
on a wide variety of subjects, including counterterrorism, alien smuggling, counternarcotics,
maritime tracking of vessels and/or high-interest cargos and international civilian maritime
activities. We look forward to even closer collaboration with our USCG partners in future, and
wish them a happy birthday! (See related story in NSA Daily.)
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108