Highway Watch Posts Alert For Petroleum Carriers
Petroleum drivers have recently experienced an uptick in suspicious encounters with strangers seeking information about their operations, prompting trucking security officials to call for drivers to be extra vigilant.
A half-dozen drivers in the Midwest have reported surveillance – people taking photographs and asking questions – by strangers who had no business being interested, according to the Highway Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC).
The center, an arm of the Highway Watch program run by the American Trucking Associations in cooperation with the Transportation Security Administration and other government agencies, is asking drivers or companies to call (866) 821-3444 if they have similar experiences.
"While there are no concrete indicators that these reports suggest pre-operational surveillance, we take them seriously and we'd like our partners to do so as well," said ISAC director Don L. Rondeau.
ISAC is the analytical and communications branch of Highway Watch. It is manned by transportation security professionals who assess security incidents and if necessary, pass information on to government intelligence and law enforcement officials.
What's noteworthy about these reports, Rondeau said, is that they occurred over a relatively short period of time, they focused on petroleum operations, and the people involved were quite blatant in their actions.
"One could almost say they wanted their presence to be known," Rondeau said.
Such an approach is unusual for your standard "for profit" criminal, he said. While these may be the actions of inept thieves seeking to take advantage of the high price of fuel, the question still must be asked, "Is this someone looking sloppily in order to gain some type of insight into a way to use the highway community as either a tactic or a target in a terrorist attack?"
The good news, Rondeau said, is that this kind of information is now being reviewed by officials in a position to do something about it. Highway ISAC is located in a Department of Homeland Security facility with other agencies committed to protecting national security, he said. He would not say how big his staff is, other than it is "sizeable."
In one ongoing case, a Highway Watch report led to an FBI investigation of a group of 10 men who were taking a skills test at a commercial driver's license school. All of the men had CDLs and claimed to be experienced, but only one could demonstrate even the most basic skill, according to a Highway Watch bulletin.
This alerted the school's training director, a Highway Watch participant, who noticed the similarity to the way the 9/11 hijackers took flight training: One of those men declared that he only wanted to learn how to turn the plane, not to land it. The director followed up and learned that the drivers' credentials were incomplete and that they were foreign nationals who were illegally in the United States. He reported his information to Highway Watch and the FBI stepped in.
With Highway Watch, "the private sector has an active opportunity to protect itself in a way that is unprecedented," Rondeau said.
This alert comes against a backdrop of other developments in hazmat security, including a federal pilot project to test truck-tracking technologies, and an additional $4.8 million in federal money for the Highway Watch program.
The Transportation Security Administration has awarded contracts totaling more than $4.5 million to develop a national tracking and communications system to improve hazmat security. Government contractors are evaluating tracking systems and developing a prototype central truck-tracking center.
The Highway Watch funding was announced late in September by Rep. Hal Rogers, R- Ky., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security.
"The Highway Watch program plays an important role in the ongoing war on terrorism," Rogers said in a statement. "The attacks in Madrid and London demonstrate that terrorist groups are moving beyond airlines into the surface transportation industry. Highway Watch provides America's truck drivers and other highway professionals with solid training that helps them identify and report dangerous or suspicious situations."
More than 150,000 drivers and others have received anti-terrorism training under Highway Watch, said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves.
More information on the program is available online at www.highwaywatch.com.
— Oliver B. Patton, Washington Editor
