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Research dossier · General Reference

Maritime security (USCG)

United States Coast Guard

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ6765892 ↗
Source-derived summary

Maritime security is concerned with the prevention of intentional damage through sabotage, subversion, or terrorism. Maritime security is one of the three basic roles of the United States Coast Guard has gradually developed in response to a series of catastrophic events, which began in 1917.

There are three main maritime security activities conducted by the Coast Guard:

Port Security.

Vessel Security.

Facility Security.

Legal Background

The principle laws that support this mission of the United States Coast Guard are:

Espionage Act of 1917 - This act empowered the Coast Guard to make regulations to prevent damage to harbors and vessels during national security emergencies.

Magnuson Act, 1950 - Enacted as a result of the "Red Scare," this act provided permanent port security regulations, and broad powers to search vessels in U.S. waters and control the movement of foreign vessels in U.S. ports.

Ports and Waterways Safety Act, 1972 – Resulting from several major groundings and oil spills, this act provided port safety authority beyond the Magnuson Act to protect the use of port transportation facilities, and to enhance efforts against the degradation of the marine environment.

Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 or MTSA – Enacted as a result of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. This Act provided sweeping new authorities for preventing acts of terrorism within the U.S. maritime domain.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Maritime security (USCG)” is united States Coast Guard. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Maritime, security and USCG, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1917, 1950, 1972, 2002—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1917. For this dossier, Maritime, security and USCG is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “united States Coast Guard” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6765892. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1950, 1972 and 2002.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Maritime security (USCG)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Maritime security (USCG) primary sources, Maritime security (USCG) archive and Maritime research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Maritime security (USCG)”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Maritime security (USCG)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.