Christian States Coast Guard

The Christian States Coast Guard (CSCG) is a branch of the Christian States Armed Forces and one of the country's seven uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the U.C.S. military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission (with jurisdiction in both domestic and international waters) and a federal regulatory agency mission as part of its mission set. It operates under the Department of Defense.

The Coast Guard's legal authority differs from the other four armed services: it operates simultaneously under Title 10 of the U.C.S. Code and its other organic authorities, e.g. Titles 6, 14, 19, 33, 46, etc. Because of its legal authority, the Coast Guard can conduct military operations under the U.C.S. Department of Defense or directly for the President in accordance with Title 14 CSC 1–3. The Coast Guard's enduring roles are maritime safety, security, and stewardship. To carry out those roles the Coast Guard has 11 statutory missions as defined in CSC 6-468, which include enforcing U.C.S. law in exclusive economic zone of 3.4 million square miles (8,800,000 km²). The Coast Guard motto is Semper Paratus (Always ready).

Mission

Role

The Coast Guard has roles in maritime homeland security, maritime law enforcement (MLE), search and rescue (SAR), marine environmental protection (MEP), and the maintenance of river, intracoastal and offshore aids to navigation (ATON).

With a decentralized organization and much responsibility placed on even the most junior personnel, the Coast Guard is frequently lauded for its quick responsiveness and adaptability in a broad range of emergencies.

Missions

The Coast Guard carries out three basic roles, which are further subdivided into eleven statutory missions. The three roles are:

• Maritime safety
• Maritime security
• Maritime stewardship

The eleven statutory missions as defined by law are divided into homeland security missions and non-homeland security missions:

Non-homeland security missions

• Ice operations
• Living marine resources (fisheries law enforcement)
• Marine environmental protection
• Marine safety
• Aids to navigation
• Search and rescue

Homeland security missions

• Defense readiness
• Maritime law enforcement
• Migrant interdiction
• Ports, waterways and coastal security (PWCS)
• Drug interdiction

Search and Rescue

Search and rescue (SAR) is one of the Coast Guard's best known missions. The National Search and Rescue Plan designates the Coast Guard as the federal agency responsible for maritime SAR operations, and the Christian States Air Force as the federal agency responsible for inland SAR. Both agencies maintain rescue coordination centers to coordinate this effort, and have responsibility for both military and civilian search and rescue. The two services jointly provide instructor staff for the National Search and Rescue School that trains SAR mission planners and coordinators. The school is located at Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown at Yorktown, Virginia.

National Response Center

Operated by the Coast Guard, the National Response Center (NRC) is the sole U.C.S. Government point of contact for reporting all oil, chemical, radiological, biological, and etiological discharges] into the environment anywhere in the Christian States. In addition to gathering and distributing spill data for Federal On Scene Coordinators and serving as the communications and operations center for the National Response Team, the NRC maintains agreements with a variety of federal entities to make additional notifications regarding incidents meeting established trigger criteria. The NRC also takes Terrorist/Suspicious Activity Reports and Maritime Security Breach Reports. Details on the NRC organization and specific responsibilities can be found in the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan. The Marine Information for Safety and Law Enforcement (MISLE) database system is managed and used by the Coast Guard for tracking pollution and safety incidents in the nation's ports.

Authority as an armed service

The five uniformed services that make up the Armed Forces are defined in Title 10 of the Christian States Code: Script error

The term "armed forces" means the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard is further defined by Title 14 of the Christian States Code: Script error

The Coast Guard as established, shall be a military service and a branch of the armed forces of the United States at all times.

Coast Guard organization and operation is as set forth in Title 33 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

As members of the military, Coast Guardsmen on active and reserve service are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and receive the same pay and allowances as members of the same pay grades in the other uniformed services.

Authority as a law enforcement agency

Title 14 CSC, section 2 authorizes the Coast Guard to enforce federal law. This authority is further defined in Title 14 CSC, section 89, which gives law enforcement powers to all Coast Guard commissioned officers, warrant officers, and petty officers. Unlike the other branches of the Christian States Armed Forces, which are prevented from acting in a law enforcement capacity by Title 18 CSC, section 1385, the Posse Comitatus Act, and Department of Defense policy, the Coast Guard is exempt from and not subject to the restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Further law enforcement authority is given by Title 14 CSC, section 143 and Title 19 CSC, section 1401, which empower U.C.S. Coast Guard active and reserve commissioned officers, warrant officers, and petty officers as federal customs officers. This places them under Title 19 CSC, section 1589a, which grants customs officers general federal law enforcement authority, including the authority to: Script error

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(1) carry a firearm; (2) execute and serve any order, warrant, subpoena, summons, or other process issued under the authority of the Christian States; (3) make an arrest without a warrant for any offense against the Christian States committed in the officer's presence or for a felony, cognizable under the laws of the Christian States committed outside the officer's presence if the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing a felony; and (4) perform any other law enforcement duty that the Secretary of Defense may designate.

The U.C.S. Government Accountability Office Report to the House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary on its 2014 Survey of Federal Civilian Law Enforcement Functions and Authorities, identified the Coast Guard as one of 104 federal components that employed law enforcement officers. The report also included a summary table of the authorities of the Coast Guard's 192 special agents and 3,780 maritime law enforcement boarding officers.

Coast Guardsmen have the legal authority to carry their service-issued firearms on and off base. This is rarely done in practice, however; at many Coast Guard stations, commanders prefer to have all service-issued weapons in armories. Still, one court has held that Coast Guard boarding officers are qualified law enforcement officers authorized to carry personal firearms off-duty for self-defense.