Oceanic Surveillance Grid

Homeland Security to test high-tech buoys: usatoday

"The federal government is preparing to test high-tech buoys adapted from Cold War-era Navy technology that could act as an offshore early warning system against a terrorist attack by sea."

"Our efforts in maritime security are greatly dependent on our ability to know what's going on, and in some ways, the ocean is still the great unknown to us," says Dana Goward, director of Maritime Domain Awareness for the Coast Guard. The buoys "tell you someone's there."

"The "sonobuoys" can pick up sounds made by everything from 25-foot speedboats commonly used in the drug trade to lumbering ships. If one passes through the invisible net of buoys, information will be transmitted by satellite to the Internet and read by security officials on land or at sea."

"The buoys would be placed roughly 20 miles apart and anchored up to 200 miles offshore, so they would be far enough away from land not to pick up a lot of recreational boats."

"Marine life noises would not be reported. Neither would passenger boats nor cargo ships over 300 tons that transmit through the Automatic Identification System. The transmissions identify the boat and tell authorities where it's headed."
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re: invisible net of buoys

Looks like phase one of the new gestapo/"Homeland" oceanic surveillance grid is about ready to go. This high tech tracking and monitoring system is being called the Small Vessel Security Strategy and was announced just last week.

Sailing for the 'open waters'? It's a thing of the past....

see also: boaters-to-be-netted