[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CRIMES AGAINST AMERICANS ON CRUISE SHIPS
=======================================================================
(110-21)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
March 27, 2007
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia JOHN L. MICA, Florida
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon DON YOUNG, Alaska
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
Columbia JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
JERROLD NADLER, New York WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
CORRINE BROWN, Florida VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
BOB FILNER, California STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD, JERRY MORAN, Kansas
California GARY G. MILLER, California
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa Carolina
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
RICK LARSEN, Washington SAM GRAVES, Missouri
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
JULIA CARSON, Indiana JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine Virginia
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California TED POE, Texas
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
DORIS O. MATSUI, California CONNIE MACK, Florida
NICK LAMPSON, Texas JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio York
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr.,
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania Louisiana
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
JOHN J. HALL, New York
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
JERRY McNERNEY, California
(ii)
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
RICK LARSEN, Washington DON YOUNG, Alaska
CORRINE BROWN, Florida HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD, WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
California FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York TED POE, Texas
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington JOHN L. MICA, Florida
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York (Ex Officio)
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Bald, Gary, Senior Vice President, Global Chief Security Officer,
Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd................................... 48
Carver, Ken, President, International Cruise Victim Organization. 29
Dale, Terry, President, Cruise Lines International Association... 48
Dishman, Laurie.................................................. 29
Hernandez, Salvador, Deputy Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation.................................................. 11
Hickey, John..................................................... 29
Justice, Rear Admiral Wayne, Assistant Commandant For Response,
United States Coast Guard...................................... 11
Kaye, Larry, Senior Partner, Kaye, Rose and Partners............. 48
Klein, Ross A., Professor, Memorial University of Newfoundland... 29
Mandigo, Charles, Director of Fleet Security, Holland America
Lines, Inc..................................................... 48
PREPARED STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY A MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Brown, Hon. Corrine, of Florida.................................. 66
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., of Maryland............................ 70
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Bald, Gary....................................................... 73
Carver, Kendall.................................................. 100
Dale, Terry...................................................... 133
Dishman, Laurie.................................................. 157
Hernandez, Salvador.............................................. 181
Hickey, John H................................................... 194
Justice, Rear Admiral Wayne...................................... 239
Kaye, Lawrence W................................................. 246
Klein, Ross A.................................................... 261
Mandigo, Charles A............................................... 278
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Hickey, John, 6 Exhibits......................................... 211
Justice, Rear Admiral Wayne, Assistant Commandant For Response,
United States Coast Guard, response to question from Rep. Coble 27
ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD
American Society of Travel Agents, Cheryl Corey Hudak, CTC,
President, statement........................................... 282
Cruise Shoppes, Shawn Tubman, President & CEO, statement......... 284
National Association Cruise Oriented Agencies, Mary S. Brennan,
ECC, and Donna K. Esposito, President, statement............... 285
Vacation.com, Steve Tracas, President & CEO, statement........... 286
Project: Safe Cruise, Tim Albright, statement.................... 288
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
CRIMES AGAINST AMERICANS ON CRUISE SHIPS
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Tuesday, March 27, 2007
House of Representatives,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room
2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Elijah
Cummings [chairman of the committee] presiding.
Mr. Cummings. This Committee hearing is now called to
order.
Good morning to everyone.
Before we begin, I ask unanimous consent that
Representative Matsui, a member of the Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure, may sit with the
Subcommittee today and participate in this hearing. And without
objection, it is so ordered.
I also commend Congresswoman Matsui for her leadership on
this issue. Today's hearing was scheduled after a request was
made by Ms. Matsui that we examine in more detail an issue that
is of great concern to the estimated 12.6 million Americans who
will take a cruise in 2007; and that is, the extent of crimes
committed against Americans on cruise ships.
Any American who travels abroad cannot expect the same
level of law enforcement's protection by U.S. officials that
they would have in the United States. And those who wonder
about the whole cruise ship issue should understand that it is
much different and much more unique than if someone were to
simply visit Disney World.
However, it is likely that many United States citizens who
travel on cruises do not realize that when they step onto a
cruise ship, even if it embarks from a United States port, they
are probably stepping into a floating piece of Panama, or the
Bahamas, or whichever foreign country whose flag the ship
bears. In fact, aside from three ships operating on the
coastwise trade in Hawaii, all of the estimated 200 ocean-going
cruise ships worldwide are flagged in countries other than the
United States. As such, the same laws and rights that protect
United States citizens on U.S. soil do not apply on cruise
ships.
The FBI may not have jurisdiction over crimes that occur on
the ship; particularly if the ship never enters a United States
port. And the investigation of a crime may require the
cooperation of many different national agencies. Further, the
very nature of cruising, traveling with a transient population
aboard a ship far from land, may make it difficult to secure a
crime scene or ensure the collection and preservation of
evidence adequate to be used in a trial in the United States.
Again, this is another distinction between the cruise ship
and visiting Disney World. And if a crime is not reported until
the alleged victim returns to port, or even to their home, the
scene of the event will likely be completely scrubbed down and
all possible witnesses will have dispersed throughout the
world.
Significantly, available data suggests that there are few
reported crimes on cruise ships. At a hearing in March 2006
convened by the Committee on Government Reform, upon which I
sit, cruise industry executives testified that 178 passengers
on North American cruises reported being sexually assaulted
between 2003 and 2005. During that same period, 24 people were
reported missing and 14 others were reported being robbed.
However, a key question that must be examined is whether
this data presents a complete picture of the level of crime on
cruise ships. Aside from the statistics reported by cruise
lines, there is no reliable data collected by any independent
source. Importantly, under United States law, crimes on cruise
lines are required to be reported only if they occur within the
12 mile limit of the United States territorial waters. Though
cruise lines have been voluntarily reporting incidents and
alleged crimes to the FBI for several years now, the FBI has
not recorded a total number of incidents reported to it.
Instead, the FBI has maintained records only on those cases for
which it has opened case files, and these have numbered only
about 50 to 60 per year.
Thus, an important question that must be examined by this
Subcommittee is whether the voluntary incident reporting
system, organized just this week by the cruise industry, the
FBI, and the Coast Guard, is adequate to capture the data
needed to develop a reliable picture of the extent of crimes on
cruise ships.
Another important issue requiring examination is what, if
anything, can be done to enhance the chance that those
individuals who are the victims of crimes on cruise ships have
a reasonable likelihood of receiving justice. In many cases,
simply because of the nature of cruising, justice is a target
floating precariously among shifting jurisdictional lines and
far from the reaches of the FBI or other Federal agencies who
may be many hours away. Those who cruise must understand that
they are entering a floating world where United States laws do
not directly reach.
But we in Congress have a responsibility to nearly 13
million of our citizens who cruise annually to ensure that,
given the unique circumstances of cruising, cruise ships are,
nonetheless, as safe as they can be. And so this is not a
hearing to in any way beat up on the cruise industry. This is a
hearing to bring some enlightenment so that when people save up
their hard-earned money and make a decision to take a vacation
on a cruise ship we can do everything in our power to maximize
their opportunities to be safe.
And with that, I recognize our Ranking Member, Mr.
LaTourette.
Mr. LaTourette. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and good morning
to you and everyone else. Thank you very much for having this
very important hearing. And thanks also to Congresswoman Matsui
for her suggestion that we do it.
The Subcommittee is meeting this morning to review the laws
and regulations relating to the reporting, investigation, and
prosecution of crimes and accidents that occur aboard cruise
vessels. As the Chairman has indicated, each year more than 10
million Americans vacation aboard cruise ships, and we need to
make sure that the existing authorities under the current legal
framework are adequate to deter and respond to all crimes that
are committed against these Americans. If there are changes
that are required to this framework to better equip passengers,
the cruise lines, and Federal agencies with the tools necessary
to prevent the occurrence of future crimes, I have every
confidence that this Subcommittee, under the able leadership of
Chairman Cummings, will move quickly to address those
shortcomings.
Almost every cruise vessel that leaves from a United States
port carries passengers on a voyage to international waters or
locations outside of the United States. As a result, the
investigation of crimes and accidents that occur aboard cruise
vessels are governed by a complicated and tangled assortment of
U.S., foreign state, and international laws, treaties, and
industry practices. I hope as we listen to our witnesses today
that they will speak to the challenges that these competing
areas of jurisdiction cause and whether there are any specific
actions that they would recommend to the United States Congress
to improve coordination and cooperation among all of the
entities involved.
One issue that I would very much appreciate if the
witnesses would address in their testimony is the apparent
discrepancy between the offenses that fall under the
jurisdiction of the United States law and the alleged crimes
that must be reported to the Coast Guard and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. Speaking only for myself, I fail to
understand why the law appears to have one set of rules for
reporting a crime and another set of rules for investigating
and prosecuting that crime under the laws of the United States.
The cruise industry is an important component of our
national economy and the economy of many coastal states. It is
in the interest of the industry to take such actions as are
necessary to deter the incidents of serious accidents and
crimes on cruise ships to the greatest extent possible.
I want to thank all of the witnesses who are set to appear
today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my
time.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. LaTourette.
Ms. Brown?
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you,
Chairman Cummings, and Mr. LaTourette for holding today's
hearing concerning the cruise industry. You are two of the
fairest Members of Congress and I am glad you will be presiding
over this hearing.
As a member of the Florida delegation and the
Representative of the Port of Jacksonville, I have particular
interest in the cruise industry. The cruise industry is the
most important economic engine in the State of Florida; over
4.8 million passengers embarked from Florida in 2005, and the
industry contributes more than $5.5 billion in direct spending.
In addition, the cruise industry is the second largest employer
in Florida, generating more than 128,000 jobs.
The cruise industry is highly regulated by the State,
Federal, and international laws. They ensure that their
passengers are safe and have a sound, safe, and secure record.
It is apparent from the FBI statistics that crime against U.S.
passengers on cruise ships are rare. Indeed, cruise ships are a
very controlled environment with entry and exits being well-
documented. I do not downplay the incidents that have occurred,
and while I express my condolences to the families of the
victims, it is important to put these incidents in perspective.
The rate of crime aboard cruise vessels is far less than
the national crime average or the crime rate in a U.S. city of
comparable size in population. Unfortunately, crime happens
wherever people gather. But the important thing is that the
risk is minimal and that procedures are in place to make sure
that crimes are investigated throughout and in a uniform
manner. The FBI, which is testifying here today, can attest
that the cruise industry has comprehensive security programs
and crime-reporting procedures in place on all of their
passenger vessels.
A leisure cruise is one of the most popular vacation
options because of the excellent safety record and the high
quality of service provided on board. I look forward to working
with the Committee to continue to ensure that safety and the
well-being of passengers on cruise ships is maintained.
In closing, let me just say in my prior life I owned three
travel agencies and a cruise is one of the most comprehensive
vacations a person can take. Sixty percent of the people who
took a cruise were second time passengers, whether it was
honeymoons, clubs, church groups. So it is a very important
industry for our 14 ports in Florida.
I am looking forward to this hearing and to working with
the Committee. Thank you both, Chairman and Ranking Member.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Ms. Brown.
Our Ranking Member of the full Committee on Transportation
and Infrastructure, Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Chairman Cummings.
First of all, I want to associate my remarks with the
comments of my colleague from Florida, Ms. Brown. She very
eloquently stated the importance of the cruise industry to our
economy in Florida. I believe, like Ms. Brown, that for
millions of Americans cruising has proven to provide a safe and
economical way for many individuals to travel to see locations
and parts of the world that would not otherwise be available to
them. As Ms. Brown said, in our State, the cruise ship industry
is part of a multi-million dollar tourism industry that
provides hundreds of thousands of jobs. It is a great boost to
some of our local, and State, and national economies.
However, I think both Ms. Brown and I share concern, and we
believe that it is important that Congress, the cruise
industry, and all levels of law enforcement do everything
possible to make certain that cruise passengers are as safe and
secure as possible. Ms. Brown and I also represent the Daytona
Beach area. We just finished Bike Week and we have actually
done a great deal of improvement in enforcement in Bike Week.
We have about a half-a-million people visit the Daytona Beach
area during Bike Week. This year I think we lost seven
individuals as a result of motorcycle accidents. Last year I
believe we lost 27 individuals coming for tourism to enjoy
themselves and participate in a great weekend activity. But
with any tourism activity, there is risk and it is important
that we put in place measures to ensure people's safety and
security.
Mr. Cummings, the Chair, also stated, very appropriately,
the difficulty we have with the cruise industry in that they
may come in and pick up passengers at a Florida city, or
Baltimore, Jacksonville, New York, wherever it may be, but in
just a few hours they are in international waters, they are
travelling to international ports. We have a very complex
situation as far as laws and liability. But U.S. law
enforcement agencies I think should be responsible for
investigating crimes against American citizens--interview
victims, and examine crime and accident scenes--and we want to
make sure there is a mechanism for doing this.
I appreciate the Transportation Committee and this
Subcommittee reviewing this matter. However, I am also on the
Committee on Government Reform, you will hear from Mr. Shays in
a few minutes, and I participated in hearings in the 109th
Congress with him and other Members. During those hearings we
received testimony from Federal agencies, the cruise line
industry, legal scholars, members of victims' families
examining some of the issues that we will hear again today.
We have made some progress. I commend the cruise industry,
the FBI, the Coast Guard for working on a protocol to improve
the reporting of crimes and accidents involving Americans on
cruise ships. Implementation of this protocol I am hopeful will
address the concerns of the cruise ship industry critics and
also hopefully address some of the delays that have lead to the
failure to prosecute crimes and to find accident victims in a
timely manner.
Again, this is a very important issue to us in Florida. I
might say in closing, I look at the different tourism
activities--we have Disney World, Sea World, I mentioned the
different activities like Bike Week that we host--and there is
no tourism business in Florida, or in the United States, or
anywhere in the world that provides a better check on its
employees, a more thorough identification of their guests,
every guest has a photo I.D. card, and also records of guests
entering and exiting the property or the ship, there is no one
that compares in having personally checked and examined some of
the system. Yes, there is room for improvement and I hope from
this hearing today we will hear what progress has been made and
what other measures can be taken.
Then, in closing, Ms. Brown mentioned the safety of cruise
ship activities and of an individual on a cruise ship versus
major metropolitan areas. I have some of the actual statistics.
One of the safest places in the world to be is on a cruise
ship, and the statistics will prove it. Finally, Mr. Chairman,
I would ask that these statistics be made part of the record.
Mr. Cummings. Without objection, so ordered.
We will now go to Mr. Bishop and then we will come back to
you, Ms. Matsui. Mr. Bishop?
Mr. Bishop. I have no opening statement at this time, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. Very well. Ms. Matsui.
Ms. Matsui. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank
you very much for calling this very important hearing. I
appreciate your willingness to bring this issue before the
Committee and to conduct a thorough and fair hearing of crime
on cruise ships.
I asked Chairman Cummings to hold this hearing because a
young woman from my district came to me for assistance after
she had been a victim of violent crime on a cruise ship. That
young woman, Laurie Dishman, is here with us today.
Laurie shared a shocking story with me in a letter one year
ago. As a passenger on board the Vision of the Seas, a ship
operated by Royal Caribbean, Laurie was raped by a crew member.
The story of her ordeal on the ship was shocking enough.
Unfortunately, I soon learned that was only the beginning.
Laurie wrote to tell me she was having difficulty getting a
response to her request for information about the incident from
the cruise line. As I began looking into the matter, a number
of red flags were raised regarding the handling of Laurie's
particular case, from the FBI decision not to have a polygraph
test of the crew member, to the cruise line withholding
Laurie's own medical information.
These incidents beg the question: What is the process when
a crime is committed on a cruise ship, and what recourse do
passengers have?
The more I have inquired, the more I have been alarmed that
there is no shortage of cases of rape, sexual assault of
minors, alcohol-related fighting and abuse, and persons
overboard. Ever more troubling, most of these incidents have
not been fully resolved or prosecuted. The onion it seems has
only more layers to peel back.
Laurie's case was declined for prosecution under
circumstances that strongly suggest Federal authorities did not
fully investigate her case and that cruise industry
representatives have coached the crew member in his testimony.
I have since learned that there have been no convictions of
rape cases on cruise lines in four decades, a statistic that
takes on a new meaning through the lens of Laurie's experience.
Cruise industry executives testified last year before the
House Government Reform Committee that 66 cases of sexual
assault were reported by Royal Caribbean between 2003 and 2005.
However, as a result of a civil suit, Royal Caribbean was
forced to turn over internal documents that showed that the
numbers were actually much higher, specifically, the number was
273. I have also come to learn that crimes that were not
reported involved minors. It seems impossible that Royal
Caribbean would not consider these crimes worthy of reporting.
This time around I want to know whether the industry has
accurately depicted the number of sex crimes on ships, and how
it chooses to define the crimes.
The cruise industry states that they are the safest form of
transportation. Some representatives have also said some
cruises are safer than being on shore. I find such claims to be
dubious, at best, but they also ignore a critical problem--at
least on land we have a police force and law governing people's
actions, and most of all, consequences for these actions based
on laws.
Americans who go on cruise ships for a family vacation have
no idea they may be stepping into a situation in which U.S. law
has little power and where they may be victims of a crime
without recourse. Cruises operate in a legal vacuum, where lack
of accountability empowers predators and obstructs their
victims' pursuit of justice. That is an unacceptable situation,
made worse by the cruise lines' own efforts to block scrutiny
of and accountability for their own handling and security of
their passengers.
My hope for this hearing is that the cruise lines finally
take these crimes seriously and enact necessary reforms. I am
sure that after hearing from Laurie you will come to the same
conclusion I have: that we must make sure something like this
never happens again. I appreciate Laurie's determination and I
am very proud to be here with her in this effort. I am
confident that from this hearing we will have a better
understanding of what actions we must take to ensure the safety
and security of the over 10 million Americans who will travel
on cruise ships this year. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Ms. Matsui.
Mr. Coble.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will not use the five
minutes. I want to thank you and the distinguished gentleman
from Ohio for having called this hearing.
Not unlike Mr. Mica, the Ranking Member of the full
Committee, I do believe that the cruise industry generally and
on balance contributes very favorably to our overall economy
and I think, for the most part, conduct themselves responsibly.
Now I have never sailed as a passenger aboard a cruise ship so
I have no on board evidence that will be enlightening today,
nor have I talked to anyone who has been a victim. But I do
believe that when passengers report aboard they have every
right to assume that they will enjoy a safe cruise. We have
victims, I am told, who will appear subsequently.
I look forward to this hearing, Mr. Chairman, and I thank
you all again for having called it. I yield back.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Coble. The Chairman
of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Mr.
Oberstar.
Mr. Oberstar. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will submit my
statement for the record. This is a hearing that is long
overdue, one about which we have been receiving deeply
disturbing reports. Ms. Matsui has already expressed, and you
have stated in your opening remarks, issues that have to be
addressed.
There are 10 million passengers a year on cruise lines in
the United States. It is a huge business, a massive multi-
billion dollar business. These ships are the size of small
cities; they do not have a police force, they have security
guards, they do not have crime victim counselors, they have
customer service representatives.
It is a very different situation on board a ship than on
land. When you step on a ship you do not realize maybe you are
stepping into another country--Liberia, Panama, another flag of
convenience country in which the vessel is registered. In other
instances we have crews aboard ship who have been told, well,
if you have a problem, you go file your lawsuit in the country
of origin where you came from or where the ship is flagged. Not
much justice in some of those places. So the U.S. courts are
the point of reference and point of justice.
People want to know that everything has been done by the
cruise line that should be done to prevent a crime from
happening, they want to be treated fairly, compassionately,
comparably to what happens in the domestic airlines. We had
very serious problems in aviation and the airlines, with the
Department of Transportation, developed a code of conduct and a
Passenger Bill of Rights. And now we find that they in several
instances have not lived up to their own Passenger Bill of
Rights.
So there are a whole host of issues we have to deal with.
Not to dwell on, but the fact that local police have to
investigate these crimes and there may be different police
forces in different ports. So I just frame a little part of the
issue, Mr. Chairman, your hearing will cover the broad scope of
issues here. We need to hear those and hear them fairly and
then determine what action needs to be taken appropriately. I
want to thank Mr. Shays for coming here this morning as well,
and Mr. LaTourette for his diligence and participation in the
hearing. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Poe.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your holding
this hearing. In my prior life I was a judge in Texas for 22
years and saw about 25,000 people charged with everything from
stealing to killing, but I also saw a good several thousand
victims work their way to the courthouse as well. I am the
founder of the Victim's Rights Caucus, a bipartisan caucus, to
promote victim's concerns in Congress. And while it is true
that the cruise industry probably has generally a safe record
regarding crime on board, generally a safe record is not good
enough. One victim is one victim too many. And I notice there
are plenty of victims here, some will not be able to testify
today but I want to thank you for being here.
I am especially concerned about sexual assault that occurs
on cruise lines in international waters. The victims that I
have talked to have told me generally when they report this to
somebody, because they do not know even who to talk to first,
the response they get is: sorry, there is nothing we can do.
That is not acceptable. We have to take care of American
citizens in international waters. Wherever crime occurs onboard
a ship, if there is an American citizen involved as a victim,
this Nation needs to be very concerned and the answer shall
never be: sorry, there is nothing we can do.
So I look forward to figuring out a solution with the
cruise industry, the FBI, and Congress to come up with a
protocol, a plan so that when a victim is victimized onboard
ship somebody cares about them, and it better be the American
Government.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my remaining time.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank you, Mr. Poe, for your
statement. I think you pretty much struck the balance we are
trying to strike in this hearing, trying to make sure that we
are fair across the board and to try to come up with solutions.
To that end, we are very pleased to have Congressman
Christopher Shays from Connecticut's fourth district. In the
109th Congress, Mr. Shays convened two hearings on crimes on
cruise ships in the Committee on Government Reform, in which as
a member of the committee I also participated. Those hearings
laid much of the groundwork for the issues to be covered today,
including examining the shortcomings in the reporting of crimes
on cruise ships to Federal officials.
Before you start, Mr. Shays, I have read all the testimony
over the last few days that is going to be presented today, and
there is one issue I think, going back to what Congressman Poe
just said, trying to find a solution to the problem, the FBI
and the Coast Guard, and I understand the cruise ship industry
has not signed on yet, but have some agreement for reporting. I
want you in your comments to comment on that solution. Because
that is what has been presented as a solution, certainly by all
of these agencies, in trying to come to some kind of fair
resolution. So I would appreciate it if you would make that a
part of your comments.
Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Cummings,
I know you well, I know you, Mr. LaTourette, well, and you are
both extraordinarily fair but you are also dogged in wanting to
know the truth. And I thank the Chairman of the full Committee
and all the Members. Thank goodness this is now before your
Committee and not just before our Committee which could
investigate and recommend. You can really work toward some
solutions.
I want to just say we were first triggered to have our
hearing in March of 2006 when I was reading about a
constituent, George Smith IV, who was on a honeymoon and he was
viewed as missing and his new wife was crying out for someone
to pay attention. At first, the cruise line acted like he was
just overboard. And then it was fairly clear as they began to
look at this there was much more to the story--blood on the
side of the ship and so on.
But what really outraged me was how she was treated. So we
wanted to look into this because we realized that you have
about seven different nations involved in the process. You have
the passenger, the port of departure, the port of call, whether
it is in a certain territory of a port of call, the ship
ownership, where the ship is flagged, are you in open waters
where then the ship is in charge, and then you have the staff
and the staff can be from who knows where, and then you learn
that this is like a floating city and they say they compare
statistics to cities but they do not divide by 52 weeks a year
to get the number to be more accurate. And then you say, well,
if you are like a city, let me talk to your police officers.
Well, they do not have them. Then you say let me talk to
someone skilled in investigation. They do not have them.
What I suspected would happen did happen, that if we had
this hearing we would start to hear other stories. You are
going to hear from a witness that I get outraged every time I
think about it. Ken Carver, he did not know where his daughter
was. She was not in communication with him. So he had to get a
private investigator, and he spent I think about $70,000, to
find out where his daughter was.
He learned that a few weeks earlier, maybe a few months
earlier, his daughter was onboard ship. Now you are going to
learn that when she was onboard ship she was viewed as missing
by the steward because she did not seem to come back to her
cabin. Now I realize that sometimes people may not go to their
cabin, they may go to some other cabin. But you want to begin
to be aware.
So he had no bed to make up all week, and he told his
superiors. And then when the ship came to port, they just
grabbed all her stuff because she did not come to pick up her
belongings. I think that could be a warning. And they took her
stuff to something like a lost and found and then just disposed
of it. Never notified anyone in the family. How outrageous is
that? She may have been killed. She may have committed suicide.
Who knows?
I would say to you, and I agree with Ms. Brown and with Mr.
Mica, cruise lines give you the best vacation. I do not doubt
that. And I do not doubt they are the best deal in town. I have
friends who love them. But there is an outrage going on and it
relates now to the fact that you are going to hear from Laurie
and she is going to tell you that in her court case, first she
is going to tell you how she was treated, which is outrageous,
she was basically ignored, put off, so she had to take action,
there are statistics that are presented in court and affidavit
that disagree with what people gave us when they were sworn in
in our Committee.
So now getting to your point, Mr. Chairman. I do not trust
the statistics the cruise line industry is giving us. I trust
what they might give to the courts, but even then I wonder. So
the first thing that we should be doing, clearly, is gathering
statistics on murders, rapes, those that are missing, sexual
assaults, maybe even serious accidents, and what about thefts.
You are going to learn that if someone steals a $5,000 watch
the cruise industry does not give a damn. They do not care.
Now, if it is worth $10,000 or more, they might pay
attention. They have this threshold. But I think passengers
need to know the statistics. How many times has there been a
murder onboard the ships? When was the last one? How many
people have gone missing onboard the ships? How many thefts
onboard the ships? How many rapes onboard the ships? That is
just providing them information, and then provide it to the
government as well.
And let me just conclude by saying to you that statistics
are the most important thing. Secondly, they must be
transparent. You are doing the right thing. You all get it. I
do not need to say anything more. But you have some precious
people who are, in fact, victims. They need to be heard and
their complaints need to be dealt with, and you are the perfect
Committee to deal with this. And Ms. Matsui, thank you for
bringing this forward and encouraging it. You are going to do
some good things. And in the end, the cruise industry itself
will benefit. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. Any questions of Mr. Shays from members of
the panel?
[No response.]
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Shays. We really
appreciate your leadership and your being here.
We will now move on to our first panel. Mr. Salvador
Hernandez, Deputy Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and Rear Admiral Wayne Justice, Assistant
Commandant for Response with the United States Coast Guard. We
have your full statements and we are going to limit your oral
remarks to five minutes. We have quite a few witnesses today.
We thank you for being here.
Mr. Hernandez.
TESTIMONY OF SALVADOR HERNANDEZ, DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR,
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; REAR ADMIRAL WAYNE JUSTICE,
ASSISTANT COMMANDANT FOR RESPONSE, UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
Mr. Hernandez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning
Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member LaTourette, and members of
the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today
and address the FBI's role in investigating crimes against
American citizens traveling aboard cruise ships. I am happy to
address some of the concerns raised by the Subcommittee
members, and specifically Congressman Matsui's concerns. But I
would like to begin with my prepared comments.
Mr. Chairman, the FBI is committed to addressing piracy and
serious criminal acts of violence and is dedicated to working
with our partners at every level to investigate and prosecute
crimes on the high seas. We will do everything in our power to
uphold our mission of protecting our fellow citizens from crime
and terrorism.
First, I would like to briefly discuss by what means the
FBI obtains its jurisdiction over crimes committed on cruise
ships. The authority of the FBI to investigate criminal
offenses and enforce laws of the United States on cruise ships
on the high seas, or territorial waters of the United States,
depends on several factors. The location of the vessel, the
nationality of the perpetrator of the victim, the ownership of
the vessel, the points of embarkation and debarkation, and the
country in which the vessel is flagged all play a role in
determining whether there is Federal authority to enforce the
laws of the United States.
The principal law under which the United States exercises
it Special Maritime and Territorial Jurisdiction is set forth
in Title 18, Section 7 of the United States Code. This statute
provides, in relevant part, that the United States has
jurisdiction over crimes committed on a ship if:
One, the ship, regardless of flag, is a U.S.-owned vessel,
either whole or in part, regardless of the nationality of the
victim or the perpetrator, when such vessel is within the
admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States and
out of the jurisdiction of any particular state;
Two, the offense by or against a U.S. national was
committed outside the jurisdiction of any nation;
Three, the crime occurred in the U.S. territorial sea,
which is 12 miles outside the coast, regardless of the
nationality of the vessel, the victim, or the perpetrator; or
Four, the victim or perpetrator is a U.S. national on any
vessel during a voyage that departed from or will arrive in a
U.S. port.
There has been interest in the FBI's ability to investigate
outside the U.S. or its territorial waters. When an incident
occurs outside the territorial waters of the United States,
numerous other factors come into play in determining the FBI's
role and ability to investigate. In addition to the laws of the
United States, the laws of other nations and international law
will determine our legal authority to respond to and/or
investigate the crime. As these incidents may involve the
citizens or interests of other countries, The FBI's
investigative efforts may implicate the sovereignty or
interests of other involved nations. Resolution of these
questions requires consultation and coordination with the U.S.
Government.
The FBI has posted a number of senior level agents in 60
legal attache offices, or Legates, and 13 sub-offices around
the world. Through established liaison with principal law
enforcement officers in designated foreign countries, the FBI's
Legates are able to pursue investigative activities where
permissible. The Legate's authority to conduct investigations
overseas or to coordinate extraterritorial teams'
investigations abroad varies greatly and must be determined by
each Legate on a country-by-country, case-by-case basis. The
Legates coordinate closely with the Department of Justice's
Office of International Affairs, which provides assistance in
international criminal matters to U.S. and foreign
investigators, prosecutors, and judicial authorities, primarily
in the international extradition of fugitives and evidence
gathering, and with the Department of State.
I would like to provide a brief summary of trends of crimes
on the high seas that the FBI has responded to and investigated
over the last five years. The following trends are based on
these statistics.
From fiscal year 2002 through February of 2007, the FBI
opened 258 cases of crime on the high seas, or approximately 50
cases opened annually. Of these 258 cases, 184, or 71 percent,
occurred on cruise ships. The remaining cases involved private
vessels, commercial ships, and oil platforms. Of the 184 cases
that occurred aboard a cruise ship, 84, or 46 percent, involved
employees as suspects.
Sexual assault and physical assaults on cruise ships were
the leading crime reported to and investigated by the FBI on
the high seas over the last five years, 55 percent and 22
percent respectively.
Most of the sexual assaults on cruise ships took place in
private cabins and over half were alcohol-related incidents.
Employees were identified as suspects in 37 percent of the
cases, and 65 percent of those employees were not U.S.
citizens. Employee on employee assaults made up approximately 2
percent of the total cases opened. Fifty-nine percent of the
sexual assault cases from fiscal year 2002 to February of this
year were not prosecuted, and the typical reasons for
prosecutive declinations were lack of evidence, indications
that the act was consensual, and/or contradictory victim or
witness statements.
Physical assaults were the second most frequent crime upon
the high seas with 53 cases opened.
Missing persons on cruise ships comprised only 12, or 5
percent of the cases opened during this period. Missing persons
were sporadic in nature, and did not appear to have any
significant pattern. There were slightly more cases opened on
cruise ships and private vessels than fishing vessels and other
commercial crafts. It is difficult to draw any conclusions from
these cases due to the inability to locate bodies in all cases.
Using eyewitness testimony, investigators were able to surmise
that alcohol was involved in at least 42 percent of these
cases. Investigations were typically closed with indications of
suicide or accident; however, in about 25 percent foul play was
suspected. Missing person cases yielded no prosecutions over
this period of time, and none of the victims were minors.
In terms of our reporting, in accordance with Federal
regulations contained in Title 33 of the Code of Federal
Regulations, passenger vessels covered by regulation must
report to the FBI each breach of security, unlawful act, or
threat of an unlawful act against passenger vessels or any
person aboard when such acts or threats occur in a place
subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
Over the past several months, the FBI has been engaged in
discussions with the cruise lines through CLIA, the Cruise
Lines International Association, and the U.S. Coast Guard
regarding the establishment of procedures relating to the
reporting of serious violations of U.S. law committed aboard
member cruise lines outside the mandatory reporting
requirements that are already in place under 33 C.F.R.
Under these proposed procedures, and I will mention that
these procedures have been adopted by the cruise line industry
by a letter that was submitted just yesterday that tells us
that they have enthusiastically adopted these measures, CLIA
members will telephonically contact the nearest FBI field
office or Legate office as soon as possible to report any of
the following incidents involving serious violations of U.S.
law: homicide, suspicious death, missing U.S. national,
kidnapping, assault with bodily injury, sexual assaults, firing
or tampering with vessels, and theft greater than $10,000.
If CLIA members are unable to contact the FBI Legate, they
will contact the FBI field office located closest to their
security office. After telephonic contact, CLIA members will
follow up with a standardized report. CLIA members will submit
reports to the Coast Guard either by facsimile or e-mail, and
they will also submit those reports to the FBI headquarters for
tracking purposes, and to the field office that is affected.
Incidents not falling into one of the above categories, and
therefore not requiring immediate attention by the FBI, may be
e-mailed or faxed to the FBI field office; for example, a theft
greater than $1,000 but less than $10,000.
If criminal activity aboard a CLIA member vessel does not
meet the above reporting criteria, CLIA members may report the
incident to the proper state or local law enforcement authority
and, if applicable, to foreign law enforcement. The decision to
continue and/or conduct additional investigation of crimes
within the jurisdiction of a state or local law enforcement
agency will be at the sole discretion of the respective state
or local agency.
Currently, the FBI tracks only the number of cases opened.
However, we have established a system that will compile reports
of all incidents submitted by the cruise lines.
I have other information regarding training but I will save
those since I am over my time. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. Admiral Justice, before you start, I hope
that you will convey to the members of the Coast Guard our
congratulations from Subcommittee and full Committee on them
making the largest seizure of drugs in the history of the Coast
Guard, and also thank them for their assistance over the
weekend when folks fell overboard. Since you all are the
subject of our Subcommittee, we want to make sure we recognize
all the good things that the men and women of the Coast Guard
do every day. Please.
Admiral Justice. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate that.
It was a real good seizure.
Good morning Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member LaTourette,
and Subcommittee members. As we see today, crimes on cruise
ships are receiving increasing attention from Congress, the
media, victims' rights groups, law enforcement, and the cruise
industry.
Given the global, multinational operational and legal
structure of cruise ship operations, responsibilities for
reporting, responding to, investigating, prosecuting, and
adjudicating these crimes on cruise ships are distributed among
a variety of nations, organizations, and individuals around the
world. In considering response options of the United States to
crime on cruise ships, the Coast Guard is mindful of the
essential operational an legal environment in which many
cruises occur, as has been stated many times this morning.
As a practical matter and consistent with well-settled
principles of international and U.S. domestic law and practice,
this operational construct allocates most criminal jurisdiction
with respect to extraterritorial cruise ship crime to flag
states or coastal states, not the state of the passenger's
nationality. This same framework allocates investigative and
enforcement jurisdiction to flag or other coastal states, not
U.S. law enforcement agencies, with respect to criminal
activities that occur beyond the foreign flag cruise ship
operating beyond the 12 mile U.S. territorial sea.
United States law enforcement agencies do have a role,
albeit limited, to play in preventing, investigating, and
responding to crime aboard foreign cruise ships operating
beyond U.S. territorial seas, most often when such vessels call
on a U.S. port. In this limited circumstance, both
international and U.S. domestic law permit the exercise of U.S.
criminal jurisdiction for certain serious offenses committed
aboard foreign flag cruise ships operating seaward of U.S.
territorial waters. When these cases arise, the Coast Guard
employs the President's Maritime Operational Threat Response,
MOTOR, plan to coordinate the real time Federal response as
well as to request and provide response and investigative
assistance to similarly situated foreign governments.
The legal environment aboard foreign flag cruise ships does
not mean that cruise ships are or should become havens for
lawlessness. The legal environment does mean that prompt
reporting of serious crimes by cruise passengers and the cruise
industry coupled with investigative cooperation among coastal
and flag states is essential to preserving cruise ship security
and safety.
Further, prospective cruise ship passengers need to assess
the level of security and safety on cruise ships on which they
embark just like they would evaluate their safety and security
risks when visiting a foreign country. Working closely with the
FBI and CLIA, the Coast Guard has participated in the
development of voluntary procedures relating to the reporting
of serious violations of U.S. laws committed aboard cruise
ships and the FBI's response to such violations.
The FBI will, on an annual basis, compile information
provided by the cruise lines and prepare a comprehensive
report. This report will be provided to CLIA, and to our
knowledge represents the first disciplined effort to gather
serious crime statistics with respect to cruise ships
frequented by U.S. nationals. This data will permit some
analysis of trends and comparison with other maritime and
tourism venues.
Those of us who have made a profession of maritime security
continue to undertake significant initiatives to better protect
U.S. citizens and U.S. interests throughout the maritime
domain. It is clear that some serious acts affecting U.S.
nationals aboard foreign flagged cruise ships have brought
great sadness to victims and the families of victims. The Coast
Guard mourns the losses and we are committed to improving the
overall safety and security environment within the maritime
domain.
We recognize the collective jurisdictional and resource
limitations of the United States, but we see viable strategies
to improve the safety and security of U.S. nationals aboard
cruise ships by leveraging partnerships with industry and
international partners, as well as improving transparency for
consumers. We believe the proposed voluntary cruise ship crime
reporting procedures are an excellent step in the right
direction to improve awareness of and response to serious
criminal activities on cruise ships.
Thank you, sir, for the opportunity to testify before you
today. I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank both of you for your
testimony. I want to pick up where you left off, Admiral. One
of the things that we are trying to do today is to make sure
that we have a measured response to a problem. I think Ms.
Brown talked about fairness and others have talked about
fairness and having balance.
You just talked about the agreement that was entered into,
both of you mentioned it. I want to go back to your testimony,
Admiral, I was reading it at 4:00 this morning and it was very
interesting, but on page 5 of your testimony you talk about the
agreement. You say ``these data will permit some analysis of
trends and comparison with other maritime and tourism venues.''
You go on to say ``The Coast Guard encourages CLIA,'' this is
the interesting point, ``to disclose the report information to
potential cruise ship passengers so that they can make informed
judgements about their comparative safety and security, and so
that CLIA members can take appropriate measures to reduce the
potential for unlawful activity aboard their vessels.''
Now this is where I am going with this. You just said that
you believe that the agreement is excellent. And then I look at
this statement and it seems like you believe that we need to go
a little further. Again, going back to trying to have a
measured response, do you stand by the written statement here?
And could you comment on that, please.
Admiral Justice. I thought my verbal and written statements
should parallel. But we have come to the conclusion----
Mr. Cummings. In other words, did you work with the FBI,
and I am going to have you comment too, Mr. Hernandez, did you
work with the FBI and the industry on this agreement?
Admiral Justice. Absolutely, sir.
Mr. Cummings. I think that whenever there can be a
voluntary agreement, the Congress applauds it as long as it
resolves the issues. I guess what I am getting at is I am
wondering if you feel that this resolves the issues, and if
not, why have we stopped short of completely resolving it, if
that is how you feel.
Admiral Justice. Sir, given the legal situation that we are
in, I do feel, and the FBI and the Coast Guard submitted this
proposal to the CLIA, that their positive response, their quick
response shows an absolute commitment on their part to work
this process. I do feel that this will provide a positive
significant step for all concerned here.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Hernandez, what will this agreement put
us in a position to do that is not happening right now? We have
a young lady, Ms. Matsui's constituent, who is going to be
testifying in a few moments and, by the way, a lot of her
written testimony, I am sure her testimony when she sits at the
table as well, goes to how she was treated. I think anyone who
imagined their wife or their daughter or sister being treated
that way would scream and go crazy.
And, interestingly enough, part of her testimony goes to
the issue of treatment by the FBI. And I tried to look at it
from both sides. A lot of it has to do with the bind that you
seem to find yourselves into; in other words, you get to the
situation late, I am not saying that is your fault, the
jurisdictional problems happen so often, so by the time you get
there the evidence is gone, you have got all kinds of problems.
She is sitting right behind you listening to you. Does this
help a situation like hers, somebody who has been assaulted and
raped? I am just curious.
Mr. Hernandez. Mr. Chairman, with respect to the first part
of your question regarding the change in the voluntary
reporting procedures, we have to go back to the fact that under
33 C.F.R. cruise lines are only required to report violations
within the 12 miles, regardless of nationality of the
perpetrator or the victim, regardless of flag or ownership.
Beyond that, they are only required to report under the law
beyond those 12 miles if it is a U.S.-flagged vessel. As you
mentioned in your statement, very few are U.S.-flagged vessels.
So in our view, and I think the cruise lines agreed and the
Coast Guard certainly did, there was a gap in terms of what was
being required to be reported involving U.S. nationals beyond
the 12 mile limit. So in September of last year, we got
together for the first time with the Coast Guard and the cruise
lines to talk about how we might remedy that. And I will echo
what Admiral Justice has said, that the cruise lines brought
that to us. They are very interested in coming up with a scheme
to require, in terms of an agreement between us and them,
require reporting to us. And that is what I think we have
arrived at.
So in answer to your first question, I think we have
expanded well beyond what was originally required under the law
to a whole new area of things that will be reported to the FBI
and to the Coast Guard. You see those set out in the letter and
in the form what those things will be.
With respect to Ms. Dishman's case, I can only speak from
what information I have been able to gather. And to answer some
of Representative Matsui's concerns, in fact, when this
occurred, and I think the date was February 21 of last year,
the FBI did respond. The following day was able to bring an
evidence response team on board to do evidence collection.
About 20 people were interviewed. The subject was, in fact,
polygraphed. The rape kit that was collected was taken and held
as evidence. The matter was presented to the U.S. Attorney's
office and it was declined for prosecution.
That is not to suggest that Ms. Dishman was not the victim
of a sexual assault. It means only that, in the view of the
U.S. Attorney's office, insufficient evidence had been obtained
to support an indictment and a conviction. That is a routine
determination, not that any case is routine, but that is
routinely the case, especially in the situation of a cruise
ship where often the accuser and the accused may know each
other in some way, typically not a stranger involvement. And so
the circumstances change a little bit. The prosecutors and,
frankly, the FBI have to view everything that we can obtain in
the way of evidence to see whether it will support an
indictment and a prosecution.
And then finally, whether this new agreement in any way
changes how that might have played out. I am not so certain.
The purpose of the agreement is really to increase the level of
reporting so that when U.S. nationals are involved we at least
have an opportunity, the FBI, the Coast Guard, and other law
enforcement agencies, if it is appropriate, have an opportunity
to look into it to see whether in fact there is jurisdiction.
As everyone has mentioned here, the jurisdiction issue is
very tricky and it is a very tangled web. So the idea is,
first, to get increased levels of reporting that we can track,
and then ultimately put together some trend analyses based on
those that might inform the industry and the public if it is
deemed to be appropriate.
Mr. Cummings. My last question, Mr. Hernandez. As a trial
lawyer, I have noticed a lot of my clients did not get in
trouble because of the offense, they got in trouble because of
obstruction of justice. I am just wondering, a lot of Ms.
Dishman's testimony, and others, by the way, sounds like they
believe that there was some blocking of the FBI and others from
getting to the bottom of the issue. Would you have the same
kind of problems, the FBI, in trying to pull together an
obstruction of justice case? The same problems would take
place?
Mr. Hernandez. I am not certain because I do not know the
facts that well about what actually transpired there on the
ship. But without rendering a legal opinion about obstruction
of justice, if there is no actual intent to impede an
investigation, it is a very difficult burden to meet. And I am
not aware of an intent to impede a known investigation at that
point last year. Were there an attempt to impede the
investigation, I think it would be worthy of presentation to
the U.S. Attorney's office. I am just not aware that was the
case there.
Mr. Cummings. You said something about Ms. Dishman's case.
When you all gather the information and present it to the U.S.
Attorney, is it typical for you to present it with a
recommendation?
Mr. Hernandez. Often, depending on what we have seen
because we are closer to the actual events. But typically, the
facts are presented and the U.S. Attorney's office or the
Assistant U.S. Attorney makes a decision based on what he or
she sees. Ultimately, they are the ones who will have to
present that in court.
Mr. Cummings. By the way, were any victims' groups a part
of the discussions with regard to the agreement that came
forth?
Mr. Hernandez. No.
Mr. Cummings. All right. Thank you.
Mr. LaTourette.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Hernandez and Admiral Justice, thank you very much for your
testimony. I tried to outline in my opening statement, and Mr.
Rayfield and I were talking as the Chairman was asking
questions, it seems to me that part of this is the by-product
of the fact that the cruise industry by its nature has changed.
We had the rather romantic notions in the past of the Titanic
coming over, that was not so romantic because it did not work
out so well, but people going back and forth across the
Atlantic.
But in the last 15 or 20 years it has become, as Ms. Brown
indicated, sort of a vacation venue. I think that because
nobody on this dais is going to arrest anybody or prosecute
anybody for crimes, our focus needs to be what laws can we
amend or come up with that do a better job of dealing with the
situations that are going to come before the Committee.
I just want to walk through. Yesterday, under the able
leadership of Chairman Cummings, we passed a bill dealing with
pollution on ships. And because of the Annex 6 of the MARPOL
Agreement, that gives us international reach. We also have
treaties with our partners that deal with safety, that if an
engine blows up or minimum requirements are concerned,
jurisdiction of the United States extends to those situations
as well. It seems to me where we have fallen short in this
country is not on your end, it is on the fact that we have not
negotiated agreements with other countries that say that United
States citizens who travel on foreign flag ships should be just
as safe from crime, rape, murder as they are from a
malfunctioning boiler or from the pollution on the ships.
So if I could, so that I have a better understanding as we
attempt to do our job as legislators, maybe walk you through
some of the existing statutes and you tell me if I am right or
wrong and what suggestions either or both of you would make.
Mr. Hernandez, you referenced 33 C.F.R. My interpretation,
and basically that indicates that the United States has the
ability on overnight voyages--there is a reporting requirement
for felonies that occur in a place that is subject to the
jurisdiction of the United States. I think I understood you in
your testimony, Mr. Hernandez, but can a foreign flag vessel
that is operating outside the territorial sea be a place that
is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States of America?
Mr. Hernandez. Yes, if the perpetrator or the victim is a
U.S. national, or that cruise ship will at some point during
its voyage make a port of call in a U.S. port, either at the
beginning, the end, or sometime in between.
Mr. LaTourette. And then the other section that we sort of
reference is the Special Maritime and Territorial Jurisdiction
that is contained in Section 7 of Title 18, that indicates that
the United States may exercise jurisdiction over certain felony
crimes that occur aboard a foreign flagged vessel. Section 7
applies to jurisdiction to an offense committed by or against a
national of the United States. And Section 8 asserts the
jurisdiction, subject to international law, over an offense
committed by or against a national on one coming in and out of
the ports.
Is your interpretation of where we are currently that U.S.
citizens who travel aboard a foreign flagged cruise vessel that
embarks or disembarks passengers at a U.S. port has the
complete protection of the United States laws relative to
felonies committed against them?
Mr. Hernandez. Yes. That is true.
Mr. LaTourette. Okay. And you also mentioned in your
testimony the ownership question. If a ship is owned by a
foreign corporation but there are some American citizens, U.S.
nationals who own stock in that company, is there a threshold
of ownership that triggers that ownership requirement even for
a foreign flag vessel?
Mr. Hernandez. I know that the language of the regulation
reads ``wholly owned or in part,'' I just do not know what
level ``in part''----
Mr. LaTourette. That was my question. Is one guy owning 10
shares part or does he have to achieve 50 percent of the
corporation? Maybe if someone at the Bureau has looked at that
and you could get back to us, I would appreciate that.
Lastly, Mr. Hernandez, you talked about the letter that you
received from the CLIA people yesterday accepting some things.
In getting ready for this hearing, there was an Ohio family who
lost a son and, at least in my reading of it, there was a
pretty wide discrepancy between when the people in charge of
the ship knew that someone was missing to when notification was
made to the Coast Guard and/or the FBI.
Did that letter that you referenced, this agreement on
notification, put in place the time frame for, for example,
when is the operator of a cruise ship required--not required,
it is a voluntary agreement--but have they agreed on a time
frame on when they are going to make that notification to
either the Coast Guard or the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
Mr. Hernandez. That was not contained in the letter. The
letter was a response to the plan that was put forward
essentially agreeing to abide by those policies.
Mr. LaTourette. Okay. Just my editorial comment and then I
will yield back. In the case that I am referencing, I think it
was like an eight hour gap. I understand that people can go
missing. And somebody made the comment that you might not be in
your cabin, you may be in somebody else's cabin. So I
understand that you have to search the ship and you have to
search maybe the port of call where you are to make sure
someone is really missing so we are not sending out false
alarms.
But it does seem to me that once the captain of the ship
realizes that there is a report of a missing person, maybe one
notification that can be made, and then after you have done
your confirmatory stuff you figure out that, yes, this person
really is missing and we need to get the Coast Guard involved.
But to just wait eight hours, twelve hours to try and figure
out that somebody is not there does not seem reasonable to me.
Admiral?
Admiral Justice. I agree with you, sir. I will say though
our experience has been, and particularly in the last couple of
months, there is no hesitation from the cruise ships to let us
know if they found somebody missing. We have had two
extraordinary cases just in the last month. With one
individual, it was maybe seven hours before it was recognized
that he was missing, but as soon as it was recognized, we were
called and fortunately we were able to find him. In a case just
this last week where two people were immediately known to be
gone, we got the call right away and were able to get out there
and effect a rescue. I think the response piece is there, sir.
Mr. LaTourette. Okay. Has anybody broached that question? I
heard what you said, that there is no reluctance on their part.
But have either of your agencies sort of reached out to them
and said, hey, while we are asking you to come up with
voluntary agreements on how we handle these sorts of things,
has the time question ever been broached in those discussions,
like when they call you and say we think somebody is missing?
Admiral Justice. No, sir.
Mr. LaTourette. Mr. Hernandez?
Mr. Hernandez. No, that has not come up in discussion. The
cruise lines representatives I think are in a better position
to comment about how that works when someone is actually
reported as missing. But my basic understanding is that it does
take a while often to establish that someone is missing and it
is not possible in every instance to basically stop the ship,
turn the ship around and begin to look. But I think they are in
a better position to talk about that.
Mr. LaTourette. I get that. I have never been on a cruise
but I bet it is hard to stop a ship, it is hard to turn it
around, I bet some people that people think are missing really
do not turn out to be missing. But it does seem to me, having
been in the crime business as a former prosecutor, that the
quicker you have the report and seal things down, or at least
secure the evidence, the better the chances of either solving
the crime or prosecuting the crime, or figuring out that you
have a problem. But thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Cummings. Just a follow-up on Mr. LaTourette's
questions. Admiral, the two cases that you mentioned, were
there witnesses to those people falling off the ship or
whatever?
Admiral Justice. In the first case, no. Thus, it took I
will say seven hours, but some period of time before it was
recognized that the individual was missing. However, when the
circumstances did come to the captain's attention, an immediate
call was made and a subsequent search fortunately found him
treading water for many hours.
In the second case just this weekend, yes, there was
another couple that had been with the first couple that had
left the area and then came back and it was apparent to them
that the couple was missing. So they made the call right away.
That happened just like that and the captain of the ship did
turn that ship around right away, dropped his boats, and found
the people.
Mr. Cummings. We may have to revisit that agreement based
upon what was brought out a moment ago by Mr. LaTourette.
Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Taylor. Mr. Chairman, I got here late.
Mr. Cummings. I am sorry. Ms. Brown.
Ms. Brown. Thank you. I think my first question will go to
the FBI representative. There has been a lot of discussion
about statistics in communities and compared to what happens on
the cruise ships. Can you give me some information in
comparison, also is the FBI involved in other resort areas,
national parks and other things like that?
Mr. Hernandez. It is hard to get a good handle on the
statistics because they are not reported per se to our national
database which produces the annual report that talks about
crime statistics in cities. So I cannot really compare the
fifty or so cases that we open each year, those are cases that
have been opened, determined to have some investigative
threshold basis met. Beyond that, many cases are reported to us
that are not opened. I am really not able to answer that
question.
Ms. Brown. Maybe you can answer this one. How does the FBI
determine whether or not to pursue a case? When you are called
in, what are some of the factors? I am sure it would be the
same if we called you in to Jacksonville.
Mr. Hernandez. That is right. Some of the investigative
thresholds that we have are national thresholds. For example,
in almost no case will the FBI investigate a theft under
$10,000 for reasons of the priority of the case, the level of
work involved versus the level of investigative resources
available, takes into account the U.S. Attorney's office
prosecutive thresholds, their interest in a case like that.
So that is a good example of a threshold that is national
that would apply to the cruise ships as well. The agreement
that we have come to with the Coast Guard and with the cruise
lines basically lays out those kinds of violations, those
serious crimes for which we think there is a potential for
prosecutive interest. That is a starting point.
When we begin there, we have to then inquire about what we
have been able to obtain in the way of evidence to support a
presentation to the prosecutors. So there are several factors
that come into play. If witnesses are unavailable or witnesses
have poor recollection of events, if physical evidence is not
available, if we have a situation where it might be one person
says this, another person says this, we really have just one
against the other, those are difficult cases to push forward.
All those determinations are made early on and then that is
presented in almost every case of a serious crime to the U.S.
Attorney's office for a prosecutive opinion. So there are
levels of inquiry at the investigative level and also at the
prosecutive level.
Ms. Brown. Okay. Mr. Justice, I have a question for you. I
have been on several cruises. And let me just say, I think the
Coast Guard does an excellent job. I want to thank you for your
rescue efforts. But my question is, you recently recovered a
couple of people, I do not understand how they get over into
the water. I do not understand that.
Admiral Justice. Ma'am, our understanding of the case this
weekend is they were on the balcony of their stateroom and
there was an accident and they went over the side. Fortunately,
they did not get knocked out when they hit the water and they
were able to tread water for the period time while both the
cruise ship rescue boats searched and then our Coast Guard
helicopter was able to locate them and pick them up. The water
was warm and they were very fortunate.
Ms. Brown. Yes, they were. Is it that there is something
wrong with the design of the ship? I just do not understand how
you get over the side.
Admiral Justice. Ma'am, that is a great question. There are
absolute standards set by IMO, International Maritime
Organization, for the height of rails, there is a standard for
how many rungs are in the rails. It is an accepted structure
that ships comply with, and we make sure they comply with that.
Beyond that, if they need to be higher, maybe that could be
changed. I really cannot comment beyond that.
Ms. Brown. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. Mr. Coble.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good to have you
all with us this morning. Gentlemen, of all the cruise ships
operating, how many are U.S. flagged? I am sure not many.
Admiral Justice. Not many, yes, sir. We think there are no
more than three that we know of.
Mr. Coble. Of the total, which would be what, a couple
hundred?
Admiral Justice. That is right.
Mr. Coble. Does the U.S. have the authority to require
foreign flagged cruise ships to carry Federal marshals aboard?
Admiral Justice. No, sir.
Mr. Coble. I would think not either. Let me revisit what
Mr. LaTourette said. I am not sure I grasped the answer. How
does the U.S. jurisdiction over passenger safety and security
measures onboard the vessel compare to jurisdiction over
violations of Federal environmental laws onboard the vessel? I
may have missed that response, but if you would say something
to me about that.
Admiral Justice. If you could ask the question again, sir.
I am sorry.
Mr. Coble. Mr. LaTourette touched on it, but how does U.S.
jurisdiction over passenger safety and security measures
onboard the vessel compare to jurisdiction over violations of
Federal environmental laws onboard the vessel, pollution, for
example.
Admiral Justice. I think they parallel. It has to do with
what happens if you call in a U.S. port or it happens within
our territorial seas, then there is jurisdiction.
Mr. Coble. So one does not enjoy superiority over another,
you do not think?
Admiral Justice. To the best of my knowledge, sir.
Mr. Coble. Mr. Hernandez, any comment? Then let me ask one
more question. Is there a penalty for a failure to report an
applicable crime that occurs aboard a cruise vessel?
Admiral Justice. Sorry, sir, could you repeat that.
Mr. Coble. Is there a penalty for a failure to report an
applicable crime that occurs aboard a cruise vessel?
Admiral Justice. Yes, sir.
Mr. Coble. What is the penalty?
Admiral Justice. Fine or imprisonment, sir. I do not know
the details.
Mr. Coble. Then let me ask you this. To whom would that
report be forwarded? I assume Coast Guard or FBI.
Admiral Justice. Yes, sir.
Mr. Coble. Coast Guard or FBI?
Admiral Justice. Yes, sir.
Mr. Coble. What are the international security and safety
standards with which a cruise vessel must comply while on the
high seas or on an international cruise? That is a general
question and it may be too general.
Admiral Justice. There are many of them, sir.
Mr. Coble. I would like to know that. If you could get back
to us on that, Admiral.
Admiral Justice. Yes, sir.
Mr. Coble. Again gentlemen, good to have you with us. Mr.
Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Coble. Ms. Matsui.
Ms. Matsui. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the questions
have all been very good. From your testimony, both of you, you
have indicated that there is this agreement regarding the
reporting of crimes. I found it very interesting that you did
not also meet with or have the victims' groups be a part of
this when you were developing this.
I compliment you on what is going on now. There seems to be
some movement as far as realizing the situation is serious
enough to start looking at it and looking at the number of
maybe unreported crimes. It seems to me you are trying to do
everything you possibly can with your own jurisdictions in
order to get to some sort of reasonable sense--you have got the
reports coming, you are kind of in an area where it is
difficult because you are on the high seas for the most part,
these ships are not American flag ships. But some of this,
particularly, Mr. Hernandez, you were saying a lot of these
things cannot be investigated or prosecuted for lack of
evidence, maybe the time delay and all.
So it seems to me we have to step back further again in the
sense that should there not be a protocol developed on the ship
itself as to how to secure the evidence, what steps must be
taken so that you are confident that you have got the evidence
and the victim herself does not have to do everything, gather
up the evidence, put it together and all of that. Could there
be a situation where both of you work with the cruise industry
to develop some sort of protocol? Have you considered that at
all?
Mr. Hernandez. Yes. In fact, we have worked with the cruise
lines for at least the past three years to put on training, FBI
agent training for cruise line security personnel. We have
worked with three of the lines and are just about to begin a
training session with a fourth line to talk about things like
that, evidence retention, preservation of crime scenes.
We are in fact also putting together a Power Point
presentation which we hope to export to the various cruise
lines so that they can view it on their own time. There has
been no reluctance on the part of the cruise lines to engage in
that kind of training. In fact, they have solicited it from us.
We have been able to give them as much as we can but they
would, frankly, like more to cover exactly the kind of
situation you are describing Congressman.
Ms. Matsui. You say you have been working with them for
three years?
Mr. Hernandez. Yes.
Ms. Matsui. I know that my constituent had this happen to
her last year.
Mr. Hernandez. Right.
Ms. Matsui. Apparently, they did not have the training
because, what I can understand from my constituent, there was
nobody there who understood what was going on. It was quite
difficult for her. Is there a way that we could factor that in
perhaps, as far as when situations like this arise where the
right things were not done, that we can go back? Because,
frankly, I think the problem is at the very beginning. If you
have an assault, you do not know what to do, you do not know
who to call, and it was the way that Ms. Dishman was handled,
it was very difficult.
It was difficult for her even to come forward. But she did.
So is there a way that you can get engaged even further
with the victims so you understand what happens in their
situation? If the cruise lines are really adamant about making
sure that people are safe, I think they should go beyond just
reporting. It is the whole series of steps that in essence led
Laurie to being here today.
Mr. Hernandez. There are certainly opportunities to train
more. And with respect to evidence collection, preservation of
crime scenes, it is not always a security person from the
cruise line that shows up first. So you may have a cabin
attendant that walks in and does not understand what he or she
sees, cleans the room.
We can do more. Our resources are such that it is difficult
to train person-on-person the kinds of numbers we are talking
about. With 200 cruise lines and the numbers of employees
involved, it is difficult to do more than we have done. That is
why we are moving toward something that we can send out that
the cruise lines can use to make sure that their employees see
it--basic crime scene preservation, not so much evidence
collection, we would hope that would be held until law
enforcement personnel can get there. But it is a huge industry
and it is something that we are working on, but it certainly
needs more attention.
Ms. Matsui. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Ms. Matsui. Let me just ask you
this, Mr. Hernandez, on the training. I am just going to ask
about the training. Do you know about how many cruise industry
folks you all train in a given training period?
Mr. Hernandez. I do not have those numbers, sir.
Mr. Cummings. Could you get that for us, please?
Mr. Hernandez. Sure.
Mr. Cummings. Could you also get us, and maybe you may be
able to answer this for us, generally what is entailed in that
training? And I would also be curious as to whether it is your
opinion that that should be a requirement for people who are
going to be dealing with--are these basically sort of law
enforcement people from the ship who get the training?
Mr. Hernandez. As I understand it, generally cruise ship
security personnel would get the training. As far as my opinion
about whether it should be required, obviously, more training
would be better than less training. I think the cruise lines
representatives that are here can answer to that in terms of
what that would actually involve, how we would set that up.
Probably the FBI could not provide all that training but there
may be other resources that would be available to provide some
of that.
With respect to your question about what the training
entails, as I said before, basically, preservation of evidence
and I am guessing some information about protection of
witnesses, keeping witnesses aside, that kind of thing.
Mr. Cummings. The reason why I asked you that is because
when reading Ms. Dishman's testimony, there is one statement
that--well, there is a lot that is of concern to any law
enforcement person--but she said that after the sexual assault
she was told to go back and gather her clothing and what have
you, I guess the sheets, and she said she folded them up very
carefully and brought them back to the law enforcement people
on the ship, the security folks, and then they treated the
stuff as if it did not matter. So there was not the
preservation of evidence.
But she said something else that concerned me, and that was
that the person who she said raped her was I think a custodian
who was sort of doubling as a security officer that night. I
think part of her alarm was that one of the very people she
thought was supposed to be protecting her ended up being the
one who hurt her. I think that is one of law enforcement's
greatest nightmares, and I do not care what level you are on,
state, local, ship, whatever, that those who are intended to
protect end up harming.
That is why I was curious about the training and how that
might be a part. I think we have a possibility of a win-win
here. But I think the industry has got to do its part. It has
got to be a two-sided street. I think still people want to know
that when they get on ships, this goes back again to what the
Judge said, Congressman Poe, one victim is one too many.
I want to thank you all for your testimony.
Mr. Coble. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. Yes, Mr. Coble?
Mr. Coble. Can I ask one more question?
Mr. Cummings. Certainly.
Mr. Coble. I will be very brief. I asked you about foreign
flagged ships. I assume that the U.S. does have the authority
to require Federal marshals to be aboard a U.S. flagged ship;
is that correct?
Admiral Justice. Yes, sir.
Mr. Coble. Admiral, what authority would these officials
have beyond U.S. waters?
Admiral Justice. Authority wherever the ship goes until it
got to a foreign nation's territorial seas.
Mr. Coble. Say again, I did not get that.
Admiral Justice. They would have authority through
international waters until that ship got to a foreign nation's
territorial seas.
Mr. Coble. Okay. How often is this done? How often do
Federal marshals accompany U.S. flagged cruises?
Admiral Justice. I do not have an answer to that, sir.
Mr. Coble. Can you get that for us?
Admiral Justice. Yes, sir.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Coble. I thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. Congressman Poe?
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, no questions.
Mr. Cummings. Just one other thing. You all have been
working with the industry to craft this agreement. Is your
responsibility now over? In other words, is this something that
is ongoing? I am just curious. I know that you have reached a
critical point because you have got now a document. But I am
wondering where you see this as going from here?
Mr. Hernandez. Actually, many of the cruise lines have been
voluntarily reporting much of this information for a while. And
so we now will begin to populate our database with what is
coming in so that we can track it in the future. We will
monitor this for an indefinite period to work out any bugs in
terms of how this works with respect to reporting. We have
guidance and policy to go out to our field offices and our
legal attache offices on how to handle these reports when they
come in. So there is more work to be done.
It is a first step but I think a critical and an important
first step to get everybody on the same page. The cruise lines,
as I mentioned before, were as much behind doing this as we
were. They wanted to find a way to standardize the reporting to
make sure that everybody within the industry understands how
the reporting should be done, what kinds of things should be
reported. So I view it as a very positive first step that we
will continue to work on.
Mr. Cummings. And Admiral?
Admiral Justice. Sir, last December I sat here in front of
you and told you I had no statistics, no answer. This year I am
here saying that we have got a plan. Maybe next year I will be
here and give you the results of that plan.
Mr. Cummings. I promise, if there is breath in my body, and
in yours, by the way----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Cummings. You will be back so that we can see. One of
the things that I do believe is that in order for Congress to
effectively and efficiently do its job, we have to constantly
have oversight and accountability. I learned that from one of
my mentors, Ms. Brown. You have got to have accountability. And
so what we will do is we will schedule to bring folks back to
see exactly how the agreement is working. What do you think is
a good time line, because you all know the kind of stats here,
and I am going to ask the cruise industry the same thing, but I
am just curious whether it is six months, a year?
Admiral Justice. I think six months would be fair.
Mr. Cummings. We will see you in about six months then.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Brown. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. Ms. Brown?
Ms. Brown. Before we move on, I want something to be
cleared up. I think it would be important for the members to
get the information on why our ships are foreign-flagged. That
is economics and it has something to do with how the ships are
built and where they are built, the taxes, and all of that. So
perhaps you can direct the staff to give us that information.
Mr. Cummings. We will definitely do that. And staff also
said that maybe we might want to have a hearing on that. But we
will get you the information, Ms. Brown. Because you are
absolutely right.
Ms. Brown. Absolutely. And as far as the information that
was requested, I am sure that information is not going to be
readily available because part of it is Homeland security and,
as you know, we work carefully with them on security as far as
the entire industry, not just the cruise ships but the whole
homeland security, whether it is cruises, or trains, or
airplanes.
Mr. Cummings. On the issue of the cruise ship, are you
talking about when I said six months?
Ms. Brown. No, no, no. I am going back to the other
matters, the concerns about the flag ships and then the
question that he asked about security.
Mr. Cummings. I promise you we will be on top of that.
Again with regard to the cruise ship situation, I want to
thank you all very much for your work. I think what you have
done with the industry shows what can be done by those of you
who are involved in trying to address an issue that because of
the laws and the treaties and whatever make things difficult. I
think so often what we do not do is do what you all have done,
and that is to sit down and try to work something out.
Is it perfect? I do not know. Will it be effective? I do
not know. Will it need more fine tuning? I do not know. But we
will take a look at it in six months and see. We look forward
to seeing you then. Thank you very much.
Our next panel please come forward now. Ken Carver,
president of International Cruise Victims Organization; Ms.
Laurie Dishman; Mr. John Hickey; Dr. Ross Klein.
I want to thank all of you for being here. We have one more
panel, so we are going to have to hold you to five minutes,
unfortunately. We will first hear from you, Mr. Carver. And
again, we thank you all for being here.
TESTIMONY OF KEN CARVER, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL CRUISE VICTIM
ORGANIZATION; LAURIE DISHMAN; JOHN HICKEY; ROSS A. KLEIN,
PROFESSOR, MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY OF NEWFOUNDLAND
Mr. Carver. It is a pleasure to be here. We appreciate this
hearing. I am here really representing myself as a victim and
as president of a group of victims called International Cruise
Victims. I think my daughter's story has been well told. Chris
Shays told it this morning with more passion than I can tell
it. She went missing. We had to trace her to a cruise ship. The
cruise ship after a few days got back to us and said she was on
the ship but could have gotten off.
In effect, for us to figure out what happened on that
cruise ship, we had to hire an international detective agency,
Kroll and Associates. We ended up going to two law firms, one
in Massachusetts and then we had to go to a law firm in
Florida, to issue injunctions against the cruise ship because
we made one decision--we wanted to talk to the steward on that
ship. The FBI failed to interview anybody on Merrian's ship.
They were not notified until five weeks after she disappeared
and then interviewed no one.
Because of all the questions, we felt we had to take
action. So we found out in January of 2005, this is four and a
half months after she disappeared, that in fact our daughter
had been reported missing daily for five days by the steward on
her cruise ship and the supervisor said to the steward, just do
your job. Five days. At the end of the cruise, the steward
asked what do we do with the belongings? He said, put them in a
bag and put them in my locker. And then we have court documents
in which the cruise ship and the management of Royal Caribbean
Cruise Line disposed of her items, except a bag which had her
name in it and that was put in storage. Until we came to them,
they had taken no action and would never have taken action on
our daughter.
When we told this story a year ago, Christopher Shays, who
was here this morning, asked Larry Kaye, who is behind me, how
do you react to Mr. Carver's testimony? And Larry Kaye said I
think what happened to Mr. Carver was absolutely horrible and
unexcusable. Now the cruise line's defense was it was that
supervisor; if it were not for him, we would have had no
problems.
So Chris Shays asked Larry Kaye, do you think the
supervisor was the one responsible? Larry Kaye came back and
said, I think he is one of the individuals responsible.
Because, clearly, the documents which were included in your
material show a whole group of people in the third week of
September setting up the cover-up of my daughter's
disappearance. When Chris Shays asked Captain Wright from Royal
Caribbean last March what did he think, why did you treat the
family this way, his response was, it was my understanding that
we did our best once we were aware of the disappearance of Ms.
Carver. That was the third week in September. It was not until
March of 2005, after I had gone to the Board of Directors, did
we get anything from the cruise line, and that has clearly been
documented.
At that point Carol and I thought we were the only two
people in the world that had had this happen. And then a book
came out in July of 2005 called The Devil in the Deep Blue Sea,
and it made this statement: ``An examination of sexual cases
found a pattern of cover-ups that often began as soon as the
crime was reported at sea, in international waters where the
only police are the ship's security officers.'' I realized that
is exactly what happened to us.
So in December of 2005 we had another hearing, and I think
you participated in that. After that hearing, that hearing
discussed my daughter's case, the George Smith case, I came
away with the conclusion that there is a major problem with the
cruise lines. So I said to my wife maybe we ought to have a
group of victims. She said, well, that might make sense. So I
contacted other families that I knew--the Smith family, the
Michael Pham family, Jean Scavones, who lost a son--and we
started a little group in January of 2006, just 15 months ago,
called International Cruise Victims. You can go to our web site
and you can see that group. That group started from zero 15
months ago and it is now gone around the world. We have members
in 10 different countries, a separate chapter in Australia.
Now what conclusions have I reached during the past year?
The last thing I ever thought I would do is represent a group
of victims. But here are the conclusions I have reached.
One, we agree with page 246 of The Devil in the Deep Blue
Sea where it says ``Avoiding negative publicity, it seemed, was
a higher priority than seeing justice done.'' That was a
statement from the book and I have to agree with that 100
percent.
Two, cruise lines take the position they do not investigate
crimes. I am glad to see the cruise lines have brought all of
their security officers, because in my daughter's case they
clearly said we are under no obligation to investigate, and we
have that in written form from other crew members. The only
thing they say they do, and on a voluntary basis--and I think
it is amazing that they just signed an agreement yesterday with
the Coast Guard and FBI, without consulting anybody else, to
short-stop legislation, to voluntarily give them information.
Three, if the cruise line officials make efforts to cover
up crimes, contrary to what was said this morning by the
previous witness, there appears to be no penalty against the
cruise line. Merrian's case is extremely well documented. They
took every step they could to cover up her disappearance. What
they did not suspect is that we would spend $75,000 to force
that steward to testify. And there is no penalty. They violated
absolutely every protocol that they had, and they are listed
earlier in my testimony.
Lastly, in the cruise line industry, and I hesitate to say
this but I have to say it because I believe it, there is a
pattern of cover up. Let me give you some examples.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Carver, I am going to have to ask you to
wrap up.
Mr. Carver. Okay. Well, in our testimony, we have proposed,
if you go to our web site, extensive documentation of changes
to make to the cruise line industry. A year ago we presented a
10 point program. Let me just make one quote from Peter
Ratcliffe, who is CEO of P&O/Princess Division. He said in
February at a press conference in Australia, ``We are also
focusing our attention on the proposals from the ICV advocacy
organization headed in Australia by Mr. Brimble.'' That is the
separate chapter. ``We recognize that these proposals reflect
the legitimate interests of the people involved in the safety
and security of passengers on board our vessels.'' And here we
have the president of one of the cruise lines saying, hey,
these documents need to be given serious consideration. I do
not think any voluntary assignment will ever do anything. I
think we have proposed positive programs to make changes.
I really thank you for the time we have had to present
this.
Mr. Cummings. I thank you.
Ms. Dishman, we want to thank you for being here today. I
have read your testimony. I know that it is not necessarily
easy to do this, but we do appreciate you being here. Please.
Ms. Dishman. Good morning, my name is Laurie Dishman. Thank
you, Chairman, the Committee, and my Congresswoman, Doris
Matsui. I am pleased to be here today. I prepared and filed a
statement for the record detailing my experience during the
last year. Today I would like to share with each of you how
that crime affected me and share my proposed solutions so that
no one else has to go through a similar experience.
A year ago my best friend and I went on a cruise to
celebrate 30 years of friendship. We wanted to relax and have
an umbrella drink in our hand. But those innocent feelings of
excitement and relaxation and celebration are no longer a part
of my life. On February 21 of last year, a Royal Caribbean
security guard raped me. Over and over, I tried to resist, with
him forcing me down and keeping me from moving until I became
unconscious. When I awoke the next morning my neck hurt and was
sore. As I got up and looked in the mirror, I had bruises on my
throat. I was horrified and shocked, crying and falling to the
floor. The terror of that experience still overwhelms me. The
sounds, the images, the feelings of helplessness, the shame are
all demons that pound in my head and tear at my heart.
I continued to have only men around me after the rape and
it was traumatizing over and over to not have anyone other than
Michelle who could help me. Instead, I was asked to fill out
statements, after telling them what had happened. And then the
purser stands up and says, ``It sounds as if you need to
control your drinking.'' I just wanted to see the doctor and
get off the ship, but they said I had to fill out statements
and then I could see the doctor. Imagine having to stay in a
place where you had been raped and writing what had happened. I
did not feel safe and these people continued to make me feel
pressure in getting things in writing.
I felt raped again when the doctor gave Michelle and me two
garbage bags and told us to go back to the cabin and collect
the evidence. We carried the garbage bags through the hallways
back to the infirmary under supervision of the male head
security officer. I have never heard of something like this
where the victim continues to be revictimized over and over
with no where to go, stuck in the middle of the ocean. I was
able to see the doctor after I collected the evidence and wrote
my statement, sitting there in the room with a male nurse and
finally a female nurse, the only female after I had been raped,
to perform parts of the rape kit, and then it was all men
again. I had never felt safe, especially in the hallways,
because the infirmary was by the crew area and being that close
was horrible.
I continued to tell the staff captain that I just wanted to
go home, and the feeling was like nobody was helping me. They
even suggested that we get off the ship and go to Mexico. And
then Michelle protected me and we had to ask to change cabins,
and so they finally did. Nothing was immediate, like they
claim. Everything was slow motion and they were trying to
figure out how to protect themselves. We got off the ship and
the cruise line flew us back to L.A. where the FBI picked us up
and told us they were taking this very seriously. They took our
statements and photographed my neck injury, and then said they
would board the ship when it docked in San Pedro.
Michelle and I returned home. Thank God for my mom and dad
and my sisters and brother. I felt safe again. Immediately I
went to my doctor to get tested for HIV and STDs and x-rays on
my neck. I also began therapy treatment called EMDR. Julie, my
FBI agent, later called me and told me the Assistant U.S.
Attorney was declining my case. I asked why, and she told me
there was not enough evidence, it was a he said-she said case.
They would not give me any information about the man who raped
me and said it was confidential.
I felt the FBI revictimized me. I now wanted to talk
directly to the U.S. Attorney to explain to me why the
evidence, my interview, the photographs of my neck, the tampon
that this man impacted into me, was not enough. Was it because
the security officer and the purser sat on the bed where the
crime occurred, or maybe because the doctor and security
required Michelle and I to collect the evidence, or could it
just be because they did not criminally prosecute these cases.
I was then told that they had not even tested my blood. Did
they not believe me? Later I learned that the security guard
was really a janitor with a record, including lying, falsifying
of records, insubordination, and anger problems. He was
drinking alcohol in the lounge the night in question. I later
learned he was served by his fellow crew members, the
bartenders, and the cruise line gave him a security badge and
they believed him.
I was told by the Department of Justice they actually
declined my case on February 26, the same day the FBI boarded
the ship. I asked the chief prosecutor how long does it usually
take when the FBI collects the evidence and for the Assistant
U.S. Attorney to decide. He said, well, it could take a month
or four years, depending on the case.
So I asked him, how could you decline my case the same day
the FBI boarded the ship and even before they tested my blood?
Why was he not kept in jail? What was the rush? I felt
revictimized by the Department of Justice. And one thing I want
to add to my statement today is that today was the first time
the FBI has ever mentioned a polygraph test that was taken on
the 26th.
So I am here today asking for you to look at this, as
important not only for myself but before there is another woman
who is raped by a security guard who is really a janitor, where
the FBI gives us less than a day, where the Department of
Justice closes another file, and everyone tramples on justice.
In February 2000, there was another passenger who sailed from
L.A., Janet Kelly, who was victimized by a cruise line and
ignored by the same FBI and Department of Justice. The rapist
went free and he ended up on another cruise line. I read her
story in a Time Magazine article.
She appeared at the last hearing in March 2006 to tell her
story and she recommended changes, including Federal marshals
and many other good ideas. I know now nothing changed from 2000
when she was raped, or from hearings last year when she
testified to the time of my cruise. I became the next Janet
Kelly. There have been others between us, too. Will the
Committee help us? Can you work together and prevent someone
from being the next Laurie Dishman?
For the past year, I have thought each day what could be
done differently to stop this from happening again. I took the
last week off to prepare my recommendations for changes. I do
not have time to discuss them all but I hope you read them.
This cruise industry cannot be trusted. Please read my
suggestions. They are attached to my statement.
In closing, thank you to the Committee for allowing me the
honor of appearing here today, and a special thank you to Doris
Matsui and her staff, who listened to me and have made this
important hearing happen. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. You thanked us, but we thank you, we really
do. We hear you.
Dr. Klein.
Mr. Klein. I am pleased to have the opportunity to assist
the Subcommittee in its deliberations about crime against
Americans on cruise ships. My comments focus largely on the
issue of sexual assault. These comments are framed, in part, by
the cruise industry claims that a person is safer on a cruise
ship than on land, and that the crime rate on cruise ships is
lower than that in the U.S. generally. My basic point, it is an
incontrovertible fact that sexual assault and sex-related
incidents are a problem for the cruise industry and the first
step in dealing with the problem is to admit that it exists and
to understand its landscape and complexity.
Last March the Committee heard testimony from Dr. James Fox
asserting that compared against their home communities,
passengers have an appreciably lower risk of sexual assault
while enjoying a vacation cruise. Based on the numbers given to
Dr. Fox by the cruise industry, and the method he used to
extrapolate from industry-wide passenger load figures, his
claim that cruise ships are safer is a fair conclusion.
However, as with any mathematical computation, if the numbers
going into the equation are unreliable, then the result is also
unreliable.
Using Dr. Fox's method but focusing on one cruise line and
the data they provided in discovery hearings, I conclude that
one has a 50 percent greater chance of sexual assault on a
Royal Caribbean International ship as compared to the U.S.
generally. I also assert that the pattern of Royal Caribbean is
consistent with that of other mass market cruise lines
operating similar ships of similar style. In contrast to Dr.
Fox's assertion that the rate of sexual assault on cruise ships
is 17.6 per 100,000, I find a rate that is almost three times
greater--48.065 per 100,000. And if we include sexual battery
into these figures, the number is almost 65 per 100,000,
roughly twice the rate for sexual assault in the U.S., which is
32.2 per 100,000.
It is useful to consider factors that likely influence the
reporting of incidents of sexual assault. After all, the
numbers we are dealing with only include reports of assault,
and these, like on land, reflect only a portion of actual
cases. While some disincentives to reporting assault are common
to cruise ships and land, the cruise ship is a unique
environment and produces its own issues.
One factor in under-reporting, as we have just heard most
eloquently, is the fear of secondary victimization. This takes
on a different flavor aboard a cruise ship where a victim who
is a crew member is left having to work with their victimizer
and continue to be in that environment even after the attack.
In effect, the person who has been victimized is first
victimized by their harassment or assault, is then revictimized
by the employer often refusing to deal with the problem, and
then revictimized again because the victimizer knows by now
that he or she can get away with the behavior pattern.
In the case of passengers, the secondary victimization may
be a bit different. Often the cruise line's first response to
an assault or sex-related incident is damage control. Their
role is to contain the damage to the cruise line rather than
deal with the victim's complain. I have heard often from
victims that dealing with the cruise line personnel is at times
worse than the actual assault. If the complaint goes forward
after the cruise is over, then the victim is likely to be
further victimized by a tendency for cruise lines to blame the
victim for their own victimization.
Once a crime is reported, there are obviously problems with
preserving evidence, and I think we have heard that fairly
well. As well, victims will often delay making a report of an
assault because of fear of reprisal while they are on the ship
and will wait until they get home. Once they get home they may
not report it because they want to let go of what had happened.
There are features of shipboard culture that are also
relevant to consider. First, is that passengers come onboard a
ship believing the cruise industry's mantra that cruise ships
are safe. Of course, as a result, they go about enjoying
themselves, they let down their guard, even let their children
run around without supervision, assuming that they can trust
what the cruise lines have said. Unfortunately, that may not be
the fact.
Shipboard culture also includes alcohol consumption. There
are many cases of assault where the victim was plied with
alcohol before an attack, including under-aged passengers, or
where the victim became inebriated on their own and with
reduced defenses were assaulted. This is not an indictment
against alcohol or bars, but simply reflects a risk that is
inherent in the ship's culture. Passengers on vacation, out to
have a good time, have furthest from their mind the need to
protect themselves from unwanted overtures from crew or
officers. And the cruise line, again, encourages them that
there is nothing to be concerned about.
About eight years ago the cruise industry, in response to
court cases dealing with sexual assaults, came out with what
they called their zero tolerance policy to crime. This was
signed on by four corporations comprising more than 80 percent
of the ships visiting U.S. ports. That zero tolerance policy
was a commitment to report all crimes occurring on cruise ships
against U.S. citizens. We would not be here today I would not
think if, in fact, that zero tolerance policy was being
followed after the PR campaign of putting it forward.
One of the emerging issues, and I just want to mention it
very briefly, is the disappearance of passengers as well as
crew members from cruise ships. Unfortunately, the best data
set of these events, and it is included in my submission, is
one I have put together from media reports and reports from
people on board ships. I would hope in a short time that we
would have a more comprehensive and accurate accounting of
these events as well as of sexual assaults. Without accurate
information we cannot adequately address the full breadth and
scope of the problem.
Thank you for this opportunity to address the Committee. I
hope I have helped provide some insight.
Mr. Cummings. I recognize Mr. LaTourette for a unanimous
consent request.
Mr. LaTourette. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will
not be able to stay for your testimony, Mr. Hickey. I want to
thank all of you for your testimony. I have been notified that
another committee requires my votes for the next hour. So, Mr.
Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that Mr. Boustany, who
is a member of the full Committee but not a member of this
Subcommittee, be permitted to participate and take my place for
the next 60 minutes or so.
Mr. Cummings. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Mr. Hickey.
Mr. Hickey. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Congressman Cummings
for inviting me to speak today before the Subcommittee. I am
truly honored.
For 27 years I have practiced law in the cruise line
capital of the world, Miami, Florida. I am a trial lawyer. For
the first 17 years of my career I represented cruise lines,
railroads, insurance companies, and major corporations. For the
last 10 years I have fought the cruise lines and have
represented passengers and crew members against cruise lines
and against large corporations.
The passengers I represent are people from all across the
United States. They are all of your constituents, constitutes
of you, Mr. Cummings, of you, Ms. Brown and Mr. Mica, my fellow
Floridians, and they are one of the 10 million United States
citizens who take cruises every year.
The cruise lines market to Americans, they depend on
Americans. And although I have heard it said that, yes,
Florida's economic engine is in large part contributed to by
the cruise lines, certainly it is those ten million Americans
every year who contribute billions of dollars to the coffers of
the cruise lines, representatives of whom are sitting behind me
at this time.
I stand by the statement made on page 2 of my paper, which
is--and I am going to get more into this, in the three and a
half minutes I am going to explore my 27 years of experience
with you. But the passenger or crew member seeking justice
against the cruise line is met with more obstacles than in any
other area of the law. I can explain that and I can also answer
some of the questions I have heard raised earlier. Congressman
Coble raised some questions that I can perhaps shed some light
on in regard to regulations and penalties.
In my paper, I share a hypothetical. In the hypothetical I
went through various scenarios of passengers, typical
passengers, your constituents, the American people who are on
cruise ships every day and what they go through. I take these
calls and my staff take these calls every working day and
sometimes on weekends from folks all across the country. I am
not going to, and I do not have time to go through the
hypotheticals. There are basically six involved.
One is Lisa Smith, and these are all fictitious names, of
course, involved in a rape. One of the problems involved in
these sexual assault cases is getting the statistics. Let me
tell you, and what Dr. Klein has addressed, statistically, what
we get from the cruise lines is a different answer every time
we ask the question. In sworn interrogatories in a case I have
pending in Miami, Florida, the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line just
swore that in a three year period the number of sexual assaults
was 17. Yet, not a year ago, before the United States Congress,
Congressman Shays' Subcommittee, that very same cruise line
submitted statistics that indicated there were approximately
66, in a slightly different time frame but the same number of
years, and there were overlapping years. I submit to you that
the rate of sexual assaults has not changed that much.
What we are not getting from the cruise lines in fact is
their database. They keep a database on these sexual assaults
and we are not getting that and you are not getting that. What
you are getting and what I am getting in law suits every day in
Miami, Florida, when I fight down there in the trenches, is a
lawyer-generated document with a self-chosen definition for
sexual assault and sexual battery. I get different numbers
every time I ask the question.
The other scenario I put forth is Maria Casa, who went
overboard. This is loosely written about a woman from Wisconsin
who went overboard in 2004 off the coast of Mexico. Annette
Meisner I believe is her name. She went overboard and
subsequently died it is believed; she has been declared dead.
The security camera trained supposedly on the landing where she
had the fight with the officer, who it is suspected may have
pushed her off, was not functioning that night.
There is another scenario in there about the mother of this
woman, Beatrice Casa, who suffers a heart attack and goes to
the ship's infirmary and is misdiagnosed as indigestion and
subsequently suffers a massive heart attach. We get calls on a
weekly basis about the medical care on cruise ships. It is
substandard and the cruise lines, through two recent
decisions--I know my time is running out but I want to get to
the end of this--two recent decisions, one out of Florida, are
marching their way toward immunization from lawsuits of medical
malpractice. This is a situation where folks are out there in
the middle of the Atlantic or the Pacific and it is an isolated
situation they are in, they have no choice but to go to these
doctors.
Next, Fred and Ethel Mertz, those may not be fictitious
names, I do not know, but Fred and Ethel go on an excursion and
they are robbed on a beach in Nassau. I chose that because
there are numerous incidents, not just in Nassau, not just in
the Bahamas, I love the Bahamas, but there are numerous cases
arising out of people getting assaulted on these beaches. The
fact is, on the one hand, the cruise lines say that the
excursions are hand picked, they are monitored, they are
continuously reviewed, but they are not. In fact, when a law
suit is brought or if a lawyer is consulted, the cruise lines
raise the fact that the excursion is an independent contractor.
I want to get to two other scenarios and then I am going to
finish up. Two actually involve crew members. You might say
what do we care about these foreign crew members, you might ask
me that question. The answer is, these crew members, some of
whom are in the marine department and some of whom are in the
hotel department, those folks are in charge of the safety and
security of all those Americans who are on board those cruise
ships. So if those folks are not healthy, and those folks are
getting into trouble, we have got a problem. I cite in my paper
an real life incident, and I am not kidding, where a life boat
in a drill was suspended approximately 60 to 90 feet in the
air, depending upon who you talk to, and the release mechanism
for the life boat, these life boats are held on cables and
lowered into the water, the release mechanism came loose and
dropped to the ocean below, injuring five of the eight
individuals on board. I am representing those individuals
against the cruise line, which is Royal Caribbean Cruise Line.
A similar incident happened one year before. There were no
injuries, but a similar accident happened one year before.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Hickey, I am going to have to ask you to
wrap up. I let you go two and a half minutes over.
Mr. Hickey. Thank you, sir. I am going to go right to the
end about the legislation that is being urged, at least by me,
today. I would of course be glad and look forward to questions.
One, Congress should consider amending the Death on the
High Seas Act so that victims of cruise ship negligence are
treated the same as victims of commercial aviation accidents. I
make a very brief point here. People who die in cruise ship
accidents and on the high seas are limited to economic damages.
Actually, on page 12, at the top, I made an error in my paper.
I said ``non-economic'' and I meant they are limited to
economic damages.
Two, Congress should consider requiring the cruise lines to
preserve crime scene evidence. That has been discussed here
today.
Three, Congress should consider creating a central database
to collect information about crime on cruise ships.
Four, Congress should consider providing whistleblower
protection for cruise line employees who report crimes.
Five, finally, Congress should consider amending the
Federal Arbitration Act to make it even clearer that the Act
does not apply to actions brought by seamen under the Jones Act
or for any other remedies. In other words, we have this Jones
Act in place to protect these seamen and yet, through a recent
11th circuit opinion and now the new clauses in contracts with
these crew members, cruise lines are forcing through this law
crew members to arbitrate in the Philippines or whatever home
country, and therefore we have this Jones Act and it is not
protecting these crew members, and these crew members are in
turn protecting American citizens.
Thank you, Mr. Cummings, and thank you, esteemed members.
Mr. Cummings. We thank you, and all of you.
Ms. Dishman, did you get any assistance from the FBI's
Office of Victims Assistance?
Ms. Dishman. I had a victims witness program, I had a
victims specialist.
Mr. Cummings. Was that helpful to you?
Ms. Dishman. It was. My victim specialist, Serge Hernandez,
was the reason why I was able to get the meeting with the
Department of Justice. The FBI actually continued to question
why this was necessary, what more would they need to tell me to
help me understand that there just was simply was not enough
evidence.
Mr. Cummings. Anybody sitting up here, Ms. Dishman, you
cannot see what we see, but sitting up here when you were
testifying, there were women who were crying. I said it before
and I will say it again, and one of our Congressmen on this
side of the aisle said it, when you have a person who goes
through something, I think it is kind of important that whoever
is trying to remedy that situation try, try,--I cannot put
myself in the shoes of a woman, but I know one thing, I would
not want what happened to you happen to any woman in my life--
but to try to put themselves in your position.
The reason why I am saying this is because you said you
hope that we will listen to you and you hope that we would try
to do something to help you, we are going to do the best we
can. But when you sit here and you see women crying, and it was
not little lightweight tears either, that is something that we
cannot just disregard. I thank them for being here and
supporting you.
Let me go to you, Mr. Hickey. A little bit earlier, Mr.
LaTourette asked the question about the laws that we presently
have, what we are presently dealing with. Were you here when
the FBI testified?
Mr. Hickey. Yes, sir, I was.
Mr. Cummings. We are legislators. It is nice when we can
convince people to voluntarily do things. But we are
legislators. When you look at the present laws and treaties and
these agreements that we have or do not have, are there things
that you would like to see us do? I know you have your
suggestions. But as legislators, are there things that you
would like to see us do? And then I do not know how familiar
you all are with the agreement. You may have heard the FBI say
they felt that it was a giant step in the right direction, and
you heard the Coast Guard say that it was excellent. I am just
wondering how you all feel about that.
Mr. Hickey. Mr. Cummings, if I could. There are a couple of
things that you have to understand, and I do not know if I am
coming across too loud. First of all, the Coast Guard I believe
said that there is a criminal penalty for not reporting certain
crimes that occur at sea. But in a way that is begging the
question, because while there is a criminal penalty if a
statute was violated, the fact is, and I believe the Coast
Guard so testified, there is not a requirement for the
reporting beyond the 12 mile limit. So there may be a criminal
penalty if you violate the law, but the law as we know it today
is pretty narrow.
Secondly, to talk about the agreement, and I know I am
skipping around a little bit and if I am not answering the
aspect of your question that you are focused on, please tell
me, but as to the agreement, I believe I have seen a draft form
of that agreement. Whenever the FBI and folks in this
Government say we are working with the industry, and I know
this industry, I get this knot in my stomach and I think maybe
the American people are going to get it again. I think
Congresswoman Matsui brought up, well, I hear you are working
with the industry, are you working with the victims' rights
folks? Are you working with the 10 million people that you all
represent, that we are all a part of, that go on cruises every
single year. Their trade association says that their market is
40,000 and there are a lot of American citizens out there.
And so I do not think a voluntary agreement is good enough.
We have seen problems. That is why we are here. We are here
because of problems in the past. We are here because, frankly,
a lot of the publicity generated from the George Smith case.
When push comes to shove, that is what happened. Congressman
Shays got involved, and thank God that he did, and thank God
for all of you spending your time and energy on this. The
American people I am sure will thank you if, in fact, something
constructive comes out of this, and I am sure it will.
But no, I do not think that voluntary is good enough. Yes,
think the laws are too narrow. And we see, for example, the
limitations, I think it was Mr. Coble that asked about the
marshals, and there were other questions I wanted to address of
Congressman Coble, about the marshals on ships. I believe there
are no marshals ever on these cruise ships. That is my
understanding. I don't know about jurisdiction, but of course,
you folks are the folks who can change the jurisdictional
aspect about that.
Mr. Cummings. I am going to get to you next, Dr. Klein, but
I really would like for you all to, once you get a chance to
see the final document, to provide us with your written
comments. I asked the question, as you probably heard a little
bit earlier, I don't necessarily, Mr. Hickey, I understand what
you just said about when, you have the Coast Guard and the FBI
working with the industry, I understand the distrust, and trust
is very important.
But it doesn't concern me, as a matter of fact, as you
heard me say, I am glad they were working together, we have a
different view on that. What does concern me, however, is when
groups like the one represented by Mr. Carver are not a part of
the process, at least to have some comments or what have you.
After all, it is people like Ms. Dishman and others who, and
you, Mr. Carver, who are in a position to take this whole issue
to the level that we see it on today.
So I think it just seems to me, I think that is a glaring
error, when those comments are not a part of the process.
Dr. Klein?
Mr. Klein. I will be as brief as I can, I won't go on too
much. For me, I find that the voluntary arrangements do not
work and are not a route to go. I prepared a couple of years
ago a brief for Bluewater Network dealing with environmental
issues and ran out very carefully the pros and cons of
voluntary versus legislative approaches. I would be more than
happy to provide to the Committee that documents as background.
Let me just give a couple of examples in terms of why I
come to this conclusion. In 2002, Crystal Cruises gave a
commitment to the City of Monterrey, California, that it would
not discharge anything while in the Monterrey Sanctuary off the
west coast of California. Several months after it was there, it
was disclosed that in fact the cruise line discharged 36,000
gallons of raw sewage and gray water. When the vice president
of the company was asked by the local community why he didn't
report it when it happened, his response was, we didn't break
the law, we only broke our word.
Hawaii has a memorandum of understanding that the industry
recently pulled out of. The first year, there were between 14
and 16 violations of that voluntary arrangement, including
violations of a written commitment by Royal Caribbean and other
cruise lines that they discharge nothing within 12 miles of the
coastline. The MOU was with a four mile mark, they violated it.
And most recently, in Washington State, there were MOU
violations, both in the first two years. The most recent
violation was a case where the cruise ship was fined for 10
violations of discharging within Washington State waters. The
cruise line came forward and said, wait, three of those
happened in Canada, we shouldn't be fined because Canada
doesn't fine us. The State came back and said, fine, we won't
fine you for those three, we will only fine you for the seven.
And the cruise line said, we will pay you $100,000 anyway to
show our commitment to the marine environment of the State of
Washington. Those are the only things I wanted to say.
Mr. Cummings. Dr. Klein, I want to make sure my comrades
here have an opportunity to speak.
Mr. Boustany.
Mr. Boustany. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think in fairness
we will go to Mr. Coble first if that is okay with you.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, sir, I appreciate that.
It is good to have you all with us, Ms. Dishman, especially
you. Ms. Dishman, the United States attorney declined to
prosecute the case involving your situation, is that correct?
Ms. Dishman. Yes.
Mr. Coble. And I presume that no criminal charges were
preferred?
Ms. Dishman. No.
Mr. Coble. Did any representative, Ms. Dishman, of the
cruise line, suggest that you contact the FBI or the Coast
Guard to report the incidence of the assault?
Ms. Dishman. No, they basically, when meeting with the
staff captain, gave me what my options would be when the crime
had occurred.
Mr. Coble. Mr. Carver, in your testimony you include
suggestions on how to enhance passenger safety and security
aboard cruise vessels. Have you approached the cruise lines to
discuss the possibility of implementing some of those
suggestions?
Mr. Carver. The answer is absolutely yes. I had a meeting
with the President of Celebrity Cruise Line last June at his
request. I said, here they are, there are 60 pages, we are
willing to sit down and talk about them, because this is a
serious document. This was not made up by me, it was made up by
experts in the world. And I didn't get an invitation to further
explore that conversation.
But we do have, in my testimony, we see the president of
P&O Princess Lines in Australia saying that their highest
priority is to look at our ten point program and they represent
legitimate suggestions for the cruise line industry. I think it
is amazing that a group of victims with no money, just telling
the cruise lines what they should do, and they are not off the
wall documents, they are serious documents.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Hickey, what should future passengers know or do to
better equip them to deal with unpleasant incidents that may be
forthcoming?
Mr. Hickey. I think one thing, and there are a lot of
suggestions that Mr. Carver and Dr. Klein have that may be more
powerful than this, but I think at a minimum, when a passenger
comes on board, a piece of literature that should be put in
their hands, rather than or in addition to the 20 pages ticket
that they get with all the ways in which the cruise line will
prevent them from suing them, I think they ought to get a
notice that if you get into trouble, you can call the FBI at
this phone number. That would be a simple start.
Because they do get a lot of literature, and they do get
the fine print on a booklet which is called their ticket. It is
basically a lot of exclusions and exculpatory clauses. I think
that was one start. Because as Ms. Dishman said, and I hear
this from folks, when I get the calls, I hear this from folks,
I didn't know where to go. I am on their ship.
If I get robbed outside this building here, or even inside
this building, I can walk outside and go to a police officer.
And if I get robbed in my hotel right down the street, I can go
outside and get a police officer and say, hey, somebody robbed
me in that hotel, or one of the employees of the hotel robbed
me. On a cruise ship, I can't walk off.
Mr. Coble. Yes, there is an isolation factor there.
Ms. Dishman, was there ever any sort of a settlement
presented to you?
Ms. Dishman. A settlement presented to me, in pursuing this
civilly, was the recommendation from the Department of Justice.
That is why I am here today with Congress. He told me to pursue
this with Congress and civilly. As far as a settlement, what I
have seen from the attorneys that work for Royal Caribbean, and
I also invite any of you to have a copy of the deposing that
was just done of my case with their law firm, their job is to
get in there and take care of this. It is like they want to put
you away in a box and make you go away.
Mr. Coble. Again, thanks to all of you. Mr. Chairman, I
want to thank the gentleman from Louisiana for having yielded.
I appreciate that, and I yield back.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. Ms. Brown?
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just be clear. As a female and as a mother, I am
very sensitive to the issues that we are discussing. I found
law enforcement across the board, whether it is in the cruise
line or in the neighborhood, they are not very sensitive in
dealing with women that are victims and we need to address it
across the board. This is not an isolated incident. This is a
problem throughout law enforcement.
I am very interested in looking at the recommendations.
Because I have not seen the recommendations, Mr. Chairman.
I guess the other issue is, I need to be clear that we are
dealing with victims and the issues about discharge and other
things are for another hearing. So I just want to see the
recommendations and as we move forward, I am very interested in
making sure that we have procedures in place that will protect
the victims and making sure that we have proper reporting.
Also, the security that may be necessary, additional security
on the ships.
Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
I want to thank you, Ms. Brown. There is no doubt about it,
I think anybody who knows Congresswoman Corrine Brown knows
that she simply seeks justice in every form. So I appreciate
your comments.
Mr. Boustany.
Mr. Boustany. Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind, we will go
to Mr. Young next.
Mr. Young. I thank the gentleman and thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I appreciate these hearings.
I will have to say right up front, I am a big supporter of
the industry and the effect they have upon my State. I have
done a little research on what occurs on cruise ships versus
what occurs on land. Overall, I would say the cruise industry,
although the victims will not agree with me, have done an
outstanding job, and can do better. But it always strikes me
awfully strangely that when there is a success in an industry,
there seems to be those in the legal profession who will try to
figure out some way they can get into their skivvies. And that
bothers me a great deal.
If this is to protect the victims, we can do something to
protect the victims, I will help that. But remember, this is a
cruise industry. These are people that go into really a
floating city. Yes, we can have background checks on our
cruise. But we can't check every passenger that goes on board
that ship. We don't know the conduct or what they are going to
do. We just had a 20 year old and a 22 year old fall off 60
feet into the water. Do we build higher walls? That is a
possibility. Will the public like that? I am not sure. That is
something that you have to ask the public.
As far as the crew, yes, we can work better on that. But it
strikes me that there is a tendency, Mr. Chairman, to look upon
this as yes, to help the victims, but maybe there is something
else behind it that they can make sure that there is a manner
of wealth that is generated by lawsuits that may not hold the
merit. I would suggest, respectfully--I can say what I wish,
and please be quiet----
Mr. Cummings. Excuse me, would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Young. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. I would just ask that the audience refrain
from statements, please. The gentleman has the floor and we
must maintain a high level of decorum.
Mr. Young. They are working together to try to make sure
this works. Remember who you are dealing with, and that is the
general public. These are floating cities. There are actually a
large part of people that go on these cruises to have a good
time. And yes, it may not turn out that way.
But we have to look and make sure that we do the best we
can to solve problems without setting a land mine to try to
hurt an industry that has been very beneficial to my State. I
yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank the gentleman for his
statement.
Let me just say to the gentleman, before you got here, I
have said it now probably six or seven times, that I wanted
this to be a fair hearing where we looked at the situation and
even probably one of the most profound statements that was made
was made by Congressman Poe, who talked about fairness. And
what we are trying to do, and we also talked, Congressman
Young, how we had to look at the situation and we had to
measure our response, so that our response would match the
significance and the seriousness of the situation.
So I just wanted you to understand that. I do appreciate
your comment.
Ms. Matsui.
Ms. Matsui. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I believe this is not a hearing on trial
lawyers at all. Laurie Dishman came to me as a constituent, and
she was very, very brave to do that. It is very difficult, as
Ms. Brown has said, for women to have to deal with assault and
rape. And she is an ordinary person, doing her work in
Sacramento, California, with neighbors. I know it is really
very difficult for you.
My hope is through this hearing we might be more
enlightened. I had actually thought that it would be wonderful
to take a cruise. I have a couple of wonderful grandchildren,
aged 3 and 6 months, and I thought it would be great to take my
little family on a cruise. I saw all the commercials on
television and thought, isn't this wonderful, the parents can
go off somewhere, maybe the kids will have their own area. And
it was a wonderful presentation. Because I am always trying to
think about ways to put the family together.
Until Laurie came to me, who by the way, she tried
everything before she came to me. It was only when she came to
me that she was able actually to get her medical records. And I
don't believe you should have to go to a member of Congress to
do that.
But I must say that I hope that we could keep this
discussion on a plane where we can come to some solutions here.
It was very painful for Laurie to come here. Mr. Carver, the
pain you had to go through, and in essence, to do the work you
have done honors your daughter. My feeling is that there are
some really good suggestions here. I know the victims have some
wonderful suggestions.
I would certainly encourage the industry to get together
with some of these victims in a manner in which we want to move
forward to have a safe industry, where we could have fun. I
really think there are a lot of suggestions that were presented
here that would be wonderful to move forward on.
I am not at all saying that we shouldn't have cruises. I
think it would be wonderful. And I want to go on a cruise. But
I am hesitant now, I am hesitant. And there are going to be
people out there like me who are hesitant. I hope that the
cruise industry can get together with the victims and with
others like us, so we can work toward some sort of solution
here.
We understand that this is a different situation, being on
a ship. Having said that, though, I think Judge Poe said it,
one victim is too many. So I thank you very much for being here
and I appreciate very much the opportunity to say a few words.
Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Mr. Boustany.
Mr. Boustany. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, Mr. Chairman, it is unfortunate that we are
having this hearing in the first place, given that cruises
should be an enjoyable event for those who take them. I came in
late, so I have only heard some of the testimony. But it is
truly disturbing to hear what has been said.
As we look at what happens, I am a physician, I have dealt
with health care and I understand we are dealing with health
care concerns on cruise lines now. We have crime, we have the
environment where there is also the possibility of terrorism.
These are all things that we need to look at.
But I really have one basic, fundamental question. I would
like to ask each of the witnesses this. I know Mr. Carver
partially answered it earlier when he was asked about whether
he has approached the cruise lines and talked to them about
adopting certain measures.
If we are going to look at prevention in particular, I
would like to know, what can the cruise lines do? What
recommendations do you have to the cruise lines that they could
undertake, provided they are willing to do so?
Mr. Carver. A year ago, I presented this ten point program.
I don't know if you have had time to review it.
Mr. Boustany. I apologize, I have not had a chance to look
through it.
Mr. Carver. Well, it was just a very brief summary. But if
you look at it, it is a pretty common sense piece of paper. At
that hearing, I went to Michael Crye at the break and I said,
Michael, you and I ought to work together. I have since written
him a letter, to which I did not receive a response. I think
what the cruise line did with the FBI and Coast Guard today, I
have to say was a move to shortcut legislation. If it is
necessary that these things are going to be reported, then hey,
let's make it a law. Let's not make it voluntary. Because I
have no sympathy, no sense that it will happen.
So if it is a matter to shortcut legislation, I really
object to that. We were excluded, Congress was excluded. If
they are going to do all these things, then let's put it into
law.
Mr. Boustany. Are there any other suggestions?
Mr. Carver. The program, it is very detailed. One of the
suggestions, we have had three people go off a ship in the last
three days, just fall off overboard. In our detailed proposal,
which is here, we have actually suggested structural changes to
correct that problem, to keep people from just, if they are
drunk or whatever, falling off a ship.
One of the strong suggestions that I have, which I fear
that the cruise line would shudder at, is that there be
independent security on those ships that, when a crime happens,
they don't report to the cruise line, their job is to address
the issue. If you go on our web site, you will find a very
detailed report, how this can be set up with the other
countries where those ships are flagged.
It is like a sky marshal on an airplane today. When the
cruise lines take the position that they do, that they don't
investigate crimes on ships, they just contact the FBI, that is
not workable. I think that is one of the major things that
should be done. And frankly, I think it would be good for the
cruise lines to do that, because it would give the passengers a
sense, and you can read my documents, of comfort, of safety,
that if something happens, there is going to be somebody there
who is independent, like you call the police here in town and
they are right there. On a cruise ship, there is no one to call
that is there to support your position. I think that is the
most significant thing that could be done. The details are
actually on our web site, in minute detail, concerning the need
for outside security on board those cruise ships.
Mr. Boustany. Do any of you care to comment on what was
said here, or to elaborate further?
Ms. Dishman. I agree with Mr. Carver. I do recommend
something, such as like a Federal marshal. Here in my case we
had a security guard who was normally a janitor. I have now
found out that there were only three security guards on duty
for 3,000 passengers. You are talking about a Royal Caribbean
city that is lawless. There are no laws. Not only was I raped,
but I had no sense of anywhere to go and what to do.
I agree with Mr. Carver, some type of independent security.
And not only does the cruise line need to work with this, but
also the FBI and Department of Justice needs to help
communicate with them and with each other. My Department of
Justice was not even aware that my assistant U.S. attorney had
declined my case the day that the FBI boarded the ship. So I
just feel that all of us together can help make this happen.
Mr. Boustany. Dr. Klein, do you want to comment?
Mr. Klein. Yes, please. I don't work with the International
Cruise Victims Organization, so my position isn't the same as
theirs, but I think it is consistent. I would make two points.
One is I think the industry needs to be honest about the risk.
I think to say that a cruise is the safest environment one can
be in is misleading. And I am not suggesting they go out and
say, we are dangerous. But I think they need to be realistic
with passengers, to take care on cruise ships like they do on
land.
The other thing is, from my view, and I am trying to
remember where I put it, I think it is in my last book, I argue
that there should be independent ombudspeople onboard a cruise
ship who are not part of the officer structure and are not
beholden to the cruise line. Having someone independent, a
passenger or a crew member who has been assaulted or otherwise
has had a crime committed against themselves can go to and deal
with. I think this is critically important, both for the
victim, but I think that when we think about crimes perpetrated
by crew members, if a crew member knows that there is a system
in place, that they are going to get caught, there is now going
to be an impediment to them committing those crimes.
So for me, in my ideal world, those would be the first two
things we should be looking at.
Mr. Boustany. Thank you. We have talked about legislative
remedies, we have talked about legal remedies. But I wanted to
focus a little bit on prevention and where things could go in
terms of preventing these types of events and problems.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Taylor. Mr. Chairman, just a couple of quick
observations, to Mr. Carver's point of losing a family member
and the ship never recorded it. It strikes me that yesterday, I
bought a $12.90 pair of vice grip pliers at a Wal-Mart and the
lady at the checkout counter forgot to demagnetize it. So as I
was walking out of the Wal-Mart with a $12.90 pair of pliers,
the alarm goes off. You would think if we could do something
like that for a pair of pliers, we could find some way to have
a name tag. I recently visited Mr. Boustany's State for Mardi
Gras. The hotel where I stayed, I had to have an arm band to
get in. Almost every fair or festival I have ever visited
requires something similar to that.
So again, I have followed the cruise ship industry with
some amount of interest. They have the laws exactly the way
they want them. They don't pay taxes, they are considered
foreign entities. They come here and their folks don't pay
minimum wage. They don't live by the ocean laws. Apparently on
several occasions, they have decided they are not responsible
to live by the pollution laws.
And yet, if I am not mistaken, something like 98 percent of
all people who ever set foot on a cruise ship will be
Americans. I think we as a Nation have to decide, are we going
to wait for a 9/11 type event to take place, where a large
number of Americans are put at risk, possibly a large number of
them hurt before we respond? Or are we going to start taking at
least incremental steps to rein in this industry where so many
Americans participate, and yet it is almost virtually outside
the scope of American law?
So I will just pass that on. I appreciate our witnesses
being here. There are actually instances where foreign-flag
vessels operate out of American ports on a daily basis, go 12
miles out to sea, turn around and go back and they are exempt
from the same laws as the tugboat to their left or the fishing
vessel to their right, because they are operating under
something called a cruise to nowhere. We tried to address this
the last time the Democrats had control of the House, and the
folks from the cruise ship industry were sitting in the back of
this room, did an excellent job of killing that in the Senate.
I am sure they got a bonus out of the deal, and yet the
loophole in the law exists.
So it is something we need to look into. I very much
appreciate your having this hearing. I hope it doesn't take a
9/11 type event before this huge vulnerability occurs. For
example, if I were to get on an airplane with a bag and the bag
is down in the hold of the aircraft, I can't leave that plane
unless the bag is also removed. The reason for that is, they
don't want someone getting on a plane with a bomb and at the
last minute acting like they have stomach ache and getting off,
and then the plane takes off and the bomb explodes.
In the instance of Mr. Carver's daughter, you would think
that there would be the same sort of security mechanism where a
passenger could get on, and maybe the passenger voluntarily
jumps overboard and leaves a bomb behind. There ought to be a
way, again, going back to that pair of vice grips analogy,
there ought to be a way to track that passenger while they are
on the vessel. I can't believe it is out of the realm of our
technological expertise. I can't believe that it is cost
prohibitive. Again, a $12 pair of pliers, compared to that, the
loss of human life, this needs to be addressed. Again, the vast
majority of the people who are going to get on those ships are
Americans. I think we owe it to our fellow Americans to try and
address this.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank you for your comments, and I
want to thank our witnesses. I just want to go back to one
thing, Mr. Carver. It really concerns some things that just
about everybody up here has said. It is an interesting
observation, in your written testimony you wrote these words,
which really struck me. You said, ``We need to address
solutions to this problem in order to protect future
passengers. The goal of the ICV,'' that is your organization,
``is not to damage cruise lines, but to hold them accountable
for the safety of future passengers and crew members, and to
require prompt and accurate reports to authorities of crimes,
deaths, disappearances and other matters that would normally be
investigated if they had occurred on land.''
As I sit here and listen to you, listen to Ms. Dishman, and
listening to Ms. Brown, Ms. Matsui, Mr. Boustany and Mr. Taylor
and others, I think that you have come to the table saying, we
want to work to come up with solutions, we are not, we have
been through some horrible pain and we have to live with that
pain until we die. We just don't want others to have to go
through what we went through.
I hope the industry, who is about to come up next, I hope
they are listening very carefully. Because I think one of the
things that we are going to have to do is we need to try to
revisit this agreement, so that hopefully we can have all the
parties coming together.
But I want to thank you for your attitude, which is one of
trying to come to a solution. Because we can argue and argue
and argue and we still don't come up with a solution. Then like
you said, Ms. Dishman, a few years from now, or maybe even next
week, there is another Ms. Dishman going through the same
things.
We are going to hear from the industry now, but again, I
thank you all. Is there anything else?
Thank you all so much. We really appreciate all of you.
We will call up the next panel now.
Mr. Terry Dale, the President of Cruise Lines International
Association; Mr. Charles Mandigo, Director of Fleet Security,
Holland America Lines, Inc.; Mr. Gary Bald, Senior Vice
President and Global Chief Security Officer, Royal Caribbean
Cruises, Ltd.; and Mr. Larry Kaye, Senior Partner, Kaye, Rose
and Partners.
Mr. Dale?
TESTIMONY OF TERRY DALE, PRESIDENT, CRUISE LINES INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATION; CHARLES MANDIGO, DIRECTOR OF FLEET SECURITY,
HOLLAND AMERICA LINES, INC.; GARY BALD, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT,
GLOBAL CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER, ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES, LTD.;
LARRY KAYE, SENIOR PARTNER, KAYE, ROSE AND PARTNERS
Mr. Dale. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the
Subcommittee. My name is Terry Dale, and I am the President and
Chief Executive Officer of Cruise Lines International
Association. Thank you for this opportunity to present
testimony on behalf of our members.
First, I wish to express our sincere condolences to those
individuals we have heard from today. Nothing I can say today
can take away from their pain and their grief. Any experience
of this type, however rare, causes the industry to increase its
efforts for safety and security. The cruise industry wants to
do the right thing.
CLIA is North America's largest cruise industry
organization, with a membership of 21 member cruise lines,
16,500 travel agencies and 100 executive partners. By way of
background, in 2006, CLIA merged with the International Council
of Cruise Lines, ICCL, thereby expanding its membership and its
mission. CLIA participates in the regulatory and policy
development process, while supporting measures that foster a
safe, secure and healthy cruise vacation. It also provides
travel agent training, research and marketing communications.
Here to support the industry today are senior executives
from our travel industry partners. I would like to invite them
to stand: American Society of Travel Agents, the National
Association of Cruise-Oriented Agencies, Vacation.com, and
Cruise Shops. Together with CLIA's agency members, this group
represents millions of satisfied and happy cruise vacationers.
We thank these organizations for their support today.
Mr. Chairman, I am here today, however, to emphasize to the
members of the Subcommittee several important facts. Cruising
is safe. This year, over 12 million passengers will board
cruise ships. Ensuring their safety and security is our highest
priority. I am proud to say that the industry has an enviable
record when it comes to safety and security. The U.S. Coast
Guard, in a comprehensive report, has emphasized that passenger
vessels are among the safest way to travel. We know of no
reason for that opinion to have changed. We find this statement
true today, because and due to our stringent security policies
and procedures.
A cruise vessel is comparable to a secure building with a
controlled environment, limited access and 24 hour security
team. Heightened security measures are standard for cruise
ships today. The cruise industry has comprehensive security
measures in place to ensure the safety and security of all our
guests. A security officer and trained security staff are on
every vessel, whose duties are solely to provide safety and
security to our guests and crew. The gentlemen seated next to
me are corporate security officers for the cruise lines, as
well as veterans of the FBI.
All crew members employed aboard our vessels are required
to obtain a U.S. visa and are subject to State Department
background checks. Cruising is one of the most popular vacation
options, in large part because of its excellent safety record
and high level of onboard service.
The cruise industry cares about its passengers. Our
passengers make the strongest statement about its safety and
security. More than 55 percent of cruisers today are repeat
cruisers. In addition, cruise passengers have a total
satisfaction of 95 percent. We must be doing some things right
to have these types of ratings.
The cruise industry has a zero tolerance for crime. Our
industry takes all allegations and incidents of crime onboard
seriously and reports them to the proper authorities. While
even one incident is one incident too many that occurs on a
passenger vessel, the industry continues to reiterate its
commitment to ensure the safety of our guests.
In the rare occurrence it is needed, CLIA member lines have
trained staff to support families and individuals during
emergency situations. In this past year, many of our member
lines have strengthened their guest support teams, both onboard
and shoreside, to aid in grief and trauma counseling, to ensure
that individuals and families receive proper assistance. In
addition, onboard security staff receive comprehensive training
from agencies such as the FBI, CBP and U.S. Coast Guard in
evidence collection and crime scene preservation.
Our FBI agreement. To further demonstrate the industry's
commitment to safety and security, I am pleased to announce
today a formal agreement between CLIA, the FBI and the U.S.
Coast Guard. This agreement further clarifies reporting
procedures for all serious violations of U.S. law alleged to
have occurred aboard our cruise ships and outlines the
jurisdiction that the United States has over these crimes. CLIA
worked with the FBI and the Coast Guard over the past year to
create uniform reporting requirements which are supplemental to
existing laws.
Let me hasten to add, Mr. Chairman, that the industry is
willing to work with this Committee to further clarify the
regulations. We sought this agreement to further the industry's
own zero tolerance for crime policy adopted in 1999. Let there
be no doubt that we are fully committed to bringing criminals
hurting anyone on our cruise ships to justice. A more detailed
explanation of laws and regulations governing crime reporting
will be provided in the testimony of Mr. Larry Kaye.
Statistics demonstrate the industry's commitment to safety.
While virtually no place on land or sea is totally risk-free,
the number of reported incidents of serious crime from cruise
lines is extremely low, no matter what benchmark or standard is
used. This statement was made by nationally renowned
criminologist Dr. James Alan Fox of Northeastern University,
who is here with us today and testified last year before the
House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and
International Relations.
I would also like to address concern regarding the accuracy
of what was reported at the January 2006 hearing. We stand by
the data that was submitted as being honest and accurate.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would again like to express
our sympathies and heart-felt remorse to the individuals here
today. CLIA and its 21 member cruise lines are constantly
reviewing industry practices and procedures. We will apply any
lessons learned that can be learned to ensure the safety of our
passengers. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Mr. Mandigo?
Mr. Mandigo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If I could ask for my whole statement to be entered into
the record and for brevity, I will go ahead and shorten that
for an oral presentation.
Mr. Cummings. So ordered. Let me just say this, I want you
all to say what you have to say. But we are going to have a
vote probably at around 15, 20 after. You can do it however you
wish. There may be a point, though, if we can finish this, we
won't have to come back. I don't want to cut you short. I want
you to stay within the five minutes, but just keep that in
mind. Because if we go past that, say 1:30, we are going to
have to come back. I don't mind coming back, I will be here
until tomorrow if necessary. I just want to make you all aware
of that.
Mr. Mandigo. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, on behalf of
Holland America Line, I thank you for inviting me to testify
before you today. I am the Director of Fleet Security for
Holland America Line, a Carnival company, a position I have
held for nearly four years. As Director of Fleet Security, I am
responsible for Holland American Lines' security programs and
for compliance with all security directives by governments and
other regulatory agencies as to terminal, ship, passenger and
cruise security practices and procedures.
Immediately prior to joining Holland America Lines, I
served with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 27 years,
working out of offices in New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C.
and Seattle. Over the course of my career, I was responsible
for cases involving all matters within the FBI's jurisdiction,
including anti-terrorism, intelligence and crimes on the high
sea. In my final assignment, I served as Special Agent in
Charge of the Seattle office of the FBI, where I was
responsible for all FBI matters within the State of Washington.
Holland America Line is one of a number of brands owned by
Carnival Corporation, which in total operates a fleet of 82
modern passenger vessels serving worldwide markets. Holland
America Lines strives to provide a safe and secure cruise
experience for its passengers and is committed to taking the
measures necessary to enure the security of its passengers.
The first step in preserving passenger security is
deterrence. However, Holland America Line also recognizes the
importance of ensuring the appropriate handling and response to
any report of a possible crime. Accordingly, all crew are
provided basic training in security. The chief of security and
his team have primary responsibility for responding to any
incident. Members of the security force are trained in
appropriate investigative techniques, such as crime scene and
evidence preservation. Our security officers generally have
backgrounds in Federal and local law enforcement or military
backgrounds with significant security and peacekeeping
experience.
Holland America Line takes operational security aboard its
vessels seriously and cooperates closely with its flag and port
States to report and investigate security incidents as
appropriate. In short, the safety of Holland America Lines
crews and passengers is our highest priority.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear here before you
today, and I will answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Mandigo.
Mr. Bald?
Mr. Bald. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. And thank you for inviting me here today to
address the questions that this Committee has.
My name, as you mentioned, is Gary Bald. I am the Senior
Vice President for Security for Royal Caribbean Cruises.
Let me begin first by extending my heart-felt sympathies
and apologies to Mr. Carver, whom I met for the first time
today and had an opportunity to chat with him. I look forward
to the opportunity, as I expressed before this hearing, to meet
with him and to discuss his concerns and his suggestions for
how we can improve security that we afford to our guests on
board. I would also like to extend my sympathies to Ms. Dishman
for the traumatic experience that she had on our cruise ship. I
have not had a chance to meet Ms. Dishman. We have invited her
down to speak to us, to talk to us about her concerns, but her
lawyer has suggested that there may be a better time to do that
later.
Before joining Royal Caribbean in June of 2006, I retired
from the FBI, where I spent nearly 29 years. I gained broad
experience in both national security and criminal law
enforcement. In my most recent position at the FBI, I served as
the Executive Assistant Director for the National Security
Branch, which is the third senior-most position in the Bureau.
In that position, I headed the Bureau's counter-terrorism,
counter-intelligence and intelligence programs worldwide, and
directed the efforts of approximately 19,000 employees. I spent
most of my FBI career in the field, conducting or supervising
criminal investigations and aiding criminal prosecutions. In
short, my life's work has been dedicated to security and I
intend to continue that to proceed.
Nothing is more important to Royal Caribbean than the
safety of our guests and our crew members. Both our actions and
our record, I believe, prove that. Of course, we are not
perfect, although we strive to be. In those moments when we do
fall short of our own expectations, we make every effort that
we can to learn from them and to strengthen our policies and
our procedures. We work hard to keep our guests and employees
safe. However, even one crime is one crime too many. We take
every allegation of a crime seriously, reporting allegations to
the FBI and to other authorities where appropriate. It is worth
noting that the overwhelming majority of allegations that we
report to the FBI would never receive their scrutiny were they
to occur on land.
I want to briefly address the statistics that our industry
provided to Congressman Shays and his Subcommittee, as has been
mentioned briefly before. Mr. Chairman, based on everything I
know about the matter, I believe the information Royal
Caribbean provided to Congressman Shays is true and accurate.
It was at that time and it is still today. If I were given the
opportunity to resubmit those statistics, they would be
identical, based on what his request was.
Royal Caribbean is a company, I believe, with a high degree
of integrity. I believed this to be true when I accepted my
position there last June and I believe it to be true today. I
will mention that if it were not true, or if I find it is not
true at any time during my employment, I will cease my
employment with Royal Caribbean. In my opinion, any suggestion
to the contrary on the statistics we provided to Congressman
Shays distort the fact and ignore the truth.
Royal Caribbean has worked diligently to improve guest and
crew safety. I would like to give you just a few examples of
what we are doing. A fuller list of initiatives is in my
written testimony, which I request be made a matter of record.
First, we are improving onboard security. This includes
spending more than $25 million, that is $25 million, Mr.
Chairman, to update and expand our onboard video surveillance,
focusing training on evidence preservation and placing more
security on board certain ships in a program that we are
currently piloting. Second, we are strengthening our ability to
provide guest with special assistance, working closely with the
Family Assistance Foundation, formalizing our rapid response
guest care team, which is available 24 hours a day to travel to
any ship around the world, and building a relationship with the
FBI's Office of Victim Assistance.
Third, we have improved our onboard SeaPass system and
bolstered our alcohol policies. Our SeaPass system helps our
security staff know which guests are crew members are on board
and which are not at any given time. We have made a significant
modification to our SeaPass process, subsequent to Mr. Carver's
losing his daughter. Previously, guests were not required to
swipe their SeaPass cards when disembarking at the end of a
cruise. Today they are required to do so, and it gives us
accountability, much more reliably, to say who is on board our
ships and who is not.
Additionally, we have implemented an award-winning alcohol
training program and other innovations to assist us in
responsible alcohol service. We are doing much more than this,
but these demonstrate some of the significant efforts that we
are making for our guests and crew.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I would refer you to my testimony,
where you will find a chronological list of 13 examples of
security initiatives that have been taken over the last year,
plus that I believe speak to some of the issues and questions
that have been raised here today.
Before ending my remarks, I would like to address the
testimony of Ms. Dishman. Clearly, she is very upset by the
events that occurred during her cruise, and as I mentioned, I
am sincerely sorry about those events and I extend my deepest
sympathies to her. We tried to help her in every way that we
could, and we accomplished that in some respects, but in
others, frankly, we came up short.
I want to make one fact very clear to the Subcommittee. As
soon as Ms. Dishman reported her allegation, our ship's
personnel took immediate action. We immediately offered medical
assistance to Ms. Dishman and we promptly notified the FBI and
provided it with all information that they requested. Ten FBI
agents boarded the ship and conducted an investigation,
including interviews of witnesses. Ultimately, after completing
its investigation, the FBI decided not to arrest or charge
anyone with a crime.
In some ways, however, we came up short. We apparently did
not adequately secure Ms. Dishman's cabin. Although it appears
that this had no effect on the FBI's investigation, the manner
in which we carried out this task was neither consistent with
our policies and practices nor our ethical obligation to our
guests. We should have done more to support Ms. Dishman's
personal and emotional needs onboard the ship. We also should
have provided Ms. Dishman with additional information sooner
than she requested. I am sorry for that delay.
Learning from those events, we have now authorized our
staff to release certain critical information to claimed
victims. Given the strict liability that cruise lines face, we
sometimes respond like other large companies facing a lawsuit:
we become too defensive. Despite this fact, we will be
providing more information sooner from this point forward.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I refer you to my written testimony for
details as to those changes.
We are using the lessons that we have learned in two
important areas. First, in our effectiveness in responding to
incidents. in my view, Royal Caribbean is very adept at
handling routine issues and guest-related incidents. However,
in situations such as Ms. Dishman's, involving intimate contact
between a guest and a crew member, or between two guests, we
are less practiced, primarily because these incidents occur so
infrequently. This also increases our chances of making a
mistake.
I was hired by Royal Caribbean to assist the company in
many ways. None is more important than in situations like this.
I am working to improve training, incident communication and
oversight to address these areas.
Second is guest support. In response to our need to improve
our efforts to provide personal and emotional support, we have
created the guest care team, which I mentioned earlier. This
dedicated team has been primarily pressed into duty in response
to medical emergencies, but has also supported victims of
alleged sexual assaults.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Bald, could you wrap up? I have let you
go three minutes over. Just wrap it up.
Mr. Bald. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will.
Mr. Cummings. It is not that it is not very interesting.
Mr. Bald. Thank you.
This team has received overwhelmingly positive feedback
from alleged victims, our gussets and their families. I believe
this represents a very strong commitment to this very important
area.
We continue to learn ways to improve our performance and I
hope these efforts demonstrate our commitment to our guests and
to their well-being.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me here today.
Cruising is one of the safest vacations a person could possibly
take, as millions of people each year experience. I would be
happy to answer any questions that you have.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Mr. Kaye?
Mr. Kaye. Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee and
other members, I want to thank you very much for inviting me to
testify today concerning the legal regime for cruise lines in
the areas of passenger security, law enforcement, crime and
casualty reporting and U.S. jurisdiction. I am senior partner
of a maritime law firm based in Los Angeles. I have been
practicing law for almost 30 years, and my entire career has
focused on maritime issues and international legal
jurisdictional issues.
I began my career as a Federal judicial law clerk to the
Chief Judge of the Southern District of California. I authored
the chapter in the leading legal treatise on cruise ships,
Benedict on Admiralty, entitled Government Regulation, which is
used today as a reference by judges, lawyers and educators. I
have had the privilege of testifying before Congress and the
California legislature concerning issues in the cruise industry
and have bene consulted and retained as an expert witness in
matters involving the legal treatment of cruise lines.
I am counsel to most of the cruise lines operating in North
America and to the Cruise Line International Association.
I will tell you, in all honesty, the most important role I
have in life is that of a husband and father of three children,
two of whom are daughters. When I think of my own family, my
heart goes out to every single victim of the kind of acts we
have heard about today. Working in this industry for over a
quarter of a century, I have personally observed the efforts of
cruise lines to keep their ships safe. Frankly, nothing should
have a higher priority. And I believe nothing does.
The reality is that U.S. law enforcement agencies do have
extra territorial jurisdiction under our present laws to
investigate and prosecute crimes involving Americans on ships
sailing on the high seas. And I believe the reach of the
reporting requirements, as Mr. Chairman, you mentioned at the
outset, do match the reach of the jurisdictional statutes. I
believe they are in concert at the present time.
More to the point, the FBI, as a matter of normal practice,
is routinely requested by the cruise lines to ensure American
passengers are protected wherever they travel. As a result,
despite the unfortunate and inevitable tragedies that occur in
an industry with more than 12 million patrons each year, cruise
ships are and remain an extremely safe vacation choice.
There are at least 20 statutes codified in Title 18 of the
U.S. Code that create felonies for crimes committed in this
special maritime jurisdiction. They extend to crimes in U.S.
waters, crimes involving Americans on the high seas, and crimes
involving Americans on foreign-flag vessels in foreign waters
if the ship departs or arrives in the U.S.
And just last year, Congress amended the abusive sexual
contact statute, which is Section 2244 of Title 18, to make it
a felony ``to engage in sexual contact with another person
without that person's permission.'' Even in the absence of
force, threats, intoxication or coercion, that felony is
punishable by two years in a Federal prison. And with respect
to the observation by Congresswoman Matsui, her concern about
the lack of prosecutions, there are currently at least a dozen
published court opinions upholding indictment and convictions
of crimes at sea on passenger ships, both on the high seas and
in foreign waters under these Federal statutes that I have
described or similar State statutes that presently exist in
Florida, California and Alaska.
The cases that I have discussed all echo the bedrock legal
principle of international law embodied in the United Nations
Convention on the law of the sea, that a nation has
jurisdiction over the citizens of its territory and a nation
has jurisdiction over crimes that have an effect in its
territory when the victim returns here. Now, when it comes to
the reporting of crimes, Federal law does impose mandatory
crime reporting requirements on all cruise ships sailing to or
from the U.S. These are the regulations for the security of
passenger vessels that were first enacted in 1996 and have been
beefed up three times since. They do impose fines and
penalties, including revocation of licenses and monetary fines.
The cruise industry has always deemed those requirements to
apply to crimes against Americans during any part of a voyage
to or from the U.S., and it is interesting to note that those
regulations define the term voyage as ``the entire course of
travel from the first port at which the vessel embarks
passenger until it is returned to that port.'' You heard the
FBI testify earlier that those regulations do reach crimes that
occur outside 12 miles and indeed, both the FBI in 2000 and the
Coast Guard in 2002 published circulars saying that the
regulations applied outside the 12 mile limit.
But Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, this is not
an issue we need to debate. If anyone thinks the rules are
unclear, let's work together to fix that. The people who most
need to know it is clear are those that would perpetrate any
sort of criminal act against my family, your family or the
millions of families that travel on ships every year. All we
need do is add a sentence to the regulations, the existing
regulations that say, these regulations apply to any crime on
any ship sailing to or from the U.S. I know of no one in this
room today that would oppose such a measure.
I want to conclude by mentioning very briefly that in
addition to the very broad criminal jurisdiction and reporting
requirements, passengers have complete redress to civil
remedies under the civil justice system. And in fact, a much
more stringent standard of liability applies in the cruise
industry and to any comparable businesses on land. A guest in a
hotel, theme park, resort, office building, restaurant or
shopping mall could not hold any of those entities liable for
an alleged assault by an employee absent negligent hiring of
someone with a known criminal past. But if the same incident is
alleged to have occurred on a cruise ship, this cruise line is
strictly liable without regard to fault.
We all know that money could never ease the pain a victim
has endured. But that alone is a powerful incentive for cruise
companies to eradicate crime.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I have worked in
this industry a very long time. The folks I know who see to our
safety are good people with honest motives. They are mothers,
father, sisters and brothers, no different than you and me.
They routinely sail on these ships with their own families.
But as long as anyone is victimized by a crime on a
vacation cruise, we have failed to do our job. I sincerely hope
we can work together with the Federal agencies to do whatever
is needed to protect all of them. And I thank you very much.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you. I thank all of you for your
testimony.
Mr. Dale, I want to go back to you. You said something that
just struck my curiosity. You said that you would work to
further clarify the agreement. What did you mean by that. You
have heard, as you can see, that has been a theme that I have
been sort of harping on. I am trying to figure out some
solutions to problems. Unfortunately here in the Congress,
things seem to happen slowly. I am trying to speed up the
process. Probably one of the easiest ways to speed up the
process is to get the industry working with the other partners
to come up with some solutions. Then perhaps, hopefully we
won't have to, but to back that up with some laws or some
change of laws, whatever.
But I think, when I listened to Mr. Bald, as I listened to
him, I said, now, this just makes sense. It seems like the
kinds of things that he is talking about that they are doing in
Royal Caribbean are the kinds of things that Mr. Taylor was
referring to. Probably need to do more.
So I am trying to figure out, and I think all of you all
expressed your concerns and sympathy and condolences with
regard to the victims here. But I want to take, sympathy, that
is important. But keep in mind why they are here. They are not
here so much for themselves. They are here because they care
about other people, people they don't even know, which says a
lot. I am sure they spent their own money trying to get here,
took off from work. So I am trying to figure out, I don't know
what that means, further clarifying the agreement. Clearly, we
have to revisit this agreement. I just want to hear what you
had to say about that.
Mr. Dale. I share your desire to work in an efficient and
inclusive manner for this clarity. That means bringing the
stakeholders together. We have been working for over a decade
on our security committee with the FBI, who is a member of and
participates, the Coast Guard, which is a member of and an
active participant, CBP. Today, I extend the invitation to meet
with the folks here today so that we are inclusive and that we
hear their concerns and that we move forward in clarifying, if
anything does in fact need further clarification.
Mr. Cummings. So you are going to be willing to meet with--
--
Mr. Dale. I will.
Mr. Cummings. I would hope that you would include Mr. Bald
in that.
Mr. Dale. Absolutely.
Mr. Cummings. The reason why I say that is because, as I
listened to the things he said, and I have talked to him
before. First of all, we have, and certainly to Mr. Mandigo, we
have a lot of respect for the FBI. I think it was good, I have
said it in private and I will say it in public, I think it is a
very important move to take the security that seriously that
you would get folks who have been in the FBI for over 25 years
or whatever you all said to be a part of that.
I guess the thing that I am wondering about is the things
that they are doing at Royal Caribbean, are you all trying to
make that industry-wide? Are you looking at other things in
addition to those things? Because it sounds like we are on the
right track?
Mr. Dale. Absolutely. We need to be compassionate
caretakers of our guests. The success of our future business
depends on that. So across our entire fleet of 21 member cruise
lines, we are developing and in many cases have already very
solid programs in place for care of our passengers who are the
unfortunate recipients of an unpleasant experience. But it very
important to us as an industry.
Mr. Cummings. One of the things that Mr. Bald said, and I
kind of scribbled it down, but basically what he said was that
although these things, when you look at the total picture, may
happen infrequently, he has to be prepared for even those
things. I don't want us to get so busy counting how many times
it happens here or happens there that we lose the bigger
picture. And that is the bigger picture that every single
person needs to be safe, every single person needs to, I would
love for Ms. Dishman to be in a position to say, you know what,
because of all the things that have been done, I know I will
feel comfortable walking onto a ship again. That is my goal. I
am just telling you. I just hope that we can move more toward
that.
Mr. LaTourette.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I apologize for not being here for your oral testimony, but
I did have the chance in preparation for this hearing to read
your written testimony. I thank you for your testimony today.
While I think I am appreciative of your expressions of
sympathy to earlier witnesses today, I think I was concerned by
a number of other observations made during the hearing, Mr.
Carver's experience in particular. I guess I am concerned how a
passenger could disappear on the second day of a seven day
cruise on a ship that spent a lot of time in U.S. territorial
waters and there was no notification to the FBI and then
obviously some other things followed. Could anyone on the panel
tell us how you would respond to that today? Because clearly
there wasn't such a hot response then.
Mr. Bald. Mr. LaTourette, if I could respond to that.
First, I would like to caveat my comments. It is very difficult
to be in a situation such as this and to speak about a loss
like Mr. Carver had and not appear to sound calloused. And I
don't want that to come across that way. The loss that he
suffered, I just can't imagine.
But to respond to your question, there were some unusual
circumstances involving Mr. Carver's daughter. She came on
board with two purses and a manila envelope. She didn't come on
with the normal luggage. That made it a bit more difficult for
us to recognize that she had not been in her stateroom every
day.
However, having said that, our stateroom attendant did have
her antennas up, his or her antennas up, and did report to the
supervisor that the stateroom attendant felt that Ms. Carver
was not spending time in her cabin. We made an error, our
supervisor did not report that further. That is something that
is absolutely against our policy. We dismissed that employee.
However, it doesn't change the fact that Ms. Carver
disappeared and that it took us an extended period of time to
recognize that before it came to our attention and gave us the
opportunity to report it.
Your final question was, what would happen differently
today. I believe that the policy that we have today is the same
one we had in place at that time, and that is to report a
missing person or a crime on board our cruise ships immediately
to the FBI. The challenge for us in that situation was, the
people that make that reporting to the FBI did not become aware
of Ms. Carver's disappearance for an extended period of time. I
would like to think that we have done enough in the way of
education and training for our crew members to make sure that
that doesn't happen again.
Mr. LaTourette. I thank you very much for that response.
I want to echo the Chairman's call that this thing really
gets worked out best when all involved come to some
accommodation and do it themselves. If it is dependent upon the
Congress, we do move a little slowly. And actually, Mr.
Chairman, the staff has reminded me that the Marconi operator
on the Republic testified before the Congress in favor of
having 24 hour telegraph operations in 1911. The Congress, in
its speedy fashion, enacted those requirements in 1912, after
the Titanic disaster.
I want to talk a little bit about the training that the FBI
agent talked a little bit about, specifically not focusing on
any specific case. But do you know whether the training, either
the FBI training that is currently ongoing or training that the
industry is engaged in, is training the medical officers
relative to rape kits and the collection of evidence and the
preservation of evidence? Mr. Bald?
Mr. Bald. Thank you, sir. I do not know whether the
training that the medical personnel on board our ships is
receiving involves the FBI. To my knowledge, it does not.
However, the FBI has been extensively involved with us. They
have trained, we have a program where they train each of our
security officers on the securing of a crime scene or an
incident scene, the preservation of evidence. I have worked
with Charlie Mandigo, who has an initiative with the FBI to
provide a train the trainer type training in those same areas
at Quantico, Virginia. We will push that forward very quickly.
As far as the rape kit, as you refer to it, the
instructions, I have actually had the opportunity to look at a
rape it. It is actually a pelvic examination kit. The
directions for using that kit are on the inside of the top
cover. Fortunately, we are dealing with medical doctors and
they have a high level of intellect and a capability to apply
those directions.
One situation I would like to discuss briefly, in the
situation of Ms. Dishman, to the extent that the information
that has been reported today and that Ms. Dishman relates, that
we had a medical officer who instructed a guest to return to
her stateroom to collect evidence, that is not our policy. It
is something that we have to correct through training, and I
will make sure we do that.
Mr. LaTourette. I appreciate that, and just so I'm clear,
maybe that the suggestion would be, having handled a number of
rape cases in my earlier life, there is nothing more important
than the correct processing of, I call it a rape kit, when it
comes to a variety of things. One, because it has the potential
to imprison someone who is guilty, it also has the potential to
exonerate someone who is not guilty. So it is really to
everyone's best interest that that evidence be collected in a
proper manner and go through a proper chain of evidence.
Because defense lawyers are very skilled at destroying the
chain of evidence.
So I would just throw out that I would wish that the
industry consider perhaps a little additional training on the
collection, since sexual assaults seem to be things that people
have talked about today.
Then the last question, Mr. Chairman, if I could, when Mr.
Carver testified he had attached to his testimony and on his
web site, ten points that he wishes the industry would
consider. And ask that either you, Mr. Dale, or Mr. Mandigo, if
you have examined those 10 points and if you have any response
to their efficacy.
Mr. Dale. I have examined those. We will be happy to
discuss those with him when we get together to clarify the
agreement.
Mr. LaTourette. Good. Mr. Mandigo?
Mr. Mandigo. Yes. At the time those were received, they
were reviewed in detail and responses were provided at that
time to ICCL for consideration for their review.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Mandigo, what did you just say?
Mr. Mandigo. I said that we did have them and they were
distributed throughout the industry for people like in my
position to make comments on. They were in turn provided back
to, at that time, ICCL.
Mr. Cummings. Can we get a copy of that?
Mr. Mandigo. I will make that inquiry.
Mr. Cummings. I guess what I am trying to get to, before we
go to Mr. Brown, I have been around here 11 years. And there
are others who have been around here much longer than I have.
But one of the things I notice about the Congress is that
you can go around in circles all the time. I promised myself if
God ever gave me an opportunity to be a chairman of a
subcommittee, and He did, that I was going to try to get things
done. It is nice to hear nice answers, and I think the reason
why I am so impressed with Mr. Bald is because he actually,
first of all, he admitted to things that were wrong. He said,
we are going to address it, we have addressed it. That is why I
said that I hope that he is a part of the process. Because that
is what we need. We need to get this thing resolved, a can-do
attitude. This is America. This is the United States. We sent
folks to the moon. We ought to be able to protect our own
citizens, no matter where they are.
I think that Mr. Boustany a few minutes ago talked about
prevention. That is what law enforcement is all about. You
would love not to have a job, I am sure. So some kind of way
that is in law enforcement, I know you want your job, Mr. Dale,
but I guess what I am getting at is I am hoping that we just, I
don't want a situation where Mr. Carver and Ms. Dishman come in
and the pour their hearts out and then we wait until the next
hearing and nothing has happened. I don't know when I met with
you, Mr. Bald, not too long ago, but I have seen a lot happen
ever since. And I have met with you in less than a month or
two. And I have seen a lot happen just as a result of that
conversation, which really impresses me.
So all I am saying is, that is why I said, tell me, Mr.
Dale, what do you mean by clarify. I don't know what clarify
means. It doesn't mean very much to them. You can't see what I
see, but they are saying, what does that mean, clarify?
So all I'm saying is, I am hoping that we can move the ball
down the field, to borrow a football expression.
Mr. Mandigo. Mr. Chairman, if I could comment briefly.
Within the kind of corporation we have, over 500 employees have
been trained in care for these kinds of situations. They have
responded to numerous incidents, both on ship and on ground. We
have provided airfare, we have provided counseling, we have
provided family support to these situations. Other things that
are being done, as he has proposed, we are looking for
technological solutions to address these issues of people going
overboard, looking at some of the technologies that are out
there. There are pilot projects in place that we are waiting
for results.
So it is not a question of sitting back and not doing
anything, based on material some of the material that has come
out of prior hearings. We are taking it very seriously, we have
reviewed it and we have acted on it.
Mr. Cummings. You are going to be meeting with them?
Mr. Dale. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. Then we will talk about some time lines.
Because I do want time lines. I want to be able to revisit this
so that we can see what kind of progress we are making.
Ms. Brown.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just say thank
you for holding this hearing to both you and the Ranking
Member. I will be very brief.
One of the things I was thinking in listening to the
testimony, something that I always pushed is for female and
minority participation. It would be very helpful in the law
enforcement area that you have females and then female
physicians. I am more comfortable with female physicians than
male physicians, even though some times I do have very good
male physicians. So that would be a recommendation that I would
make, that part of your cure is to make sure that on the ships,
you have female law enforcement people and female physicians to
deal with incidents like this.
Once again, I want to see the comprehensive recommendation.
And I guess, let me ask you quickly, the question was whether
or not it should be something in statute and someone commented
how that we could add to make it in statute, or the
recommendations that are moving forward, how do you feel about
it? That is open to either one of the speakers, but
particularly I want to hear from the lawyer.
Mr. Kaye. Thank you, Ms. Brown.
I think there are two issues here. One is clarifying that
the reporting requirements do apply to any crime on a voyage to
or from the U.S. That can easily be fixed at the regulatory
level by simply amending the regulations. They have been
amended three times since 1996. We shouldn't have any confusion
over that. The industry isn't confused over that, but the
agencies may be, from what I have heard today.
So with regard to the ICD recommendations, I can verify
that they have been very closely looked at. I sat down with Ken
Carver, who is a wonderful human being, who has been suffering
terribly at the loss of his daughter, sat down with him, we
struck up a very good rapport. I have gone through those
recommendations very carefully. Many of them were in place, but
were unknown to the victims. Some of them have been added, as
you have heard today. And some of them are still under review.
The issue of putting a bracelet or an anklet on passengers
is a tough one, because not every passenger wants to wear it.
So if they don't wear it, you can't get the benefits of the
technology. But there may be other ways.
Ms. Brown. I think the last time I was on a ship, they do
put something on you when you get ready to leave, when you go
into a certain port, then when you come back they double check
it or something. So there is something in place as we speak.
Mr. Kaye. Yes, there is an APass with your picture on it
that is swiped and registers your presence on the vessel
whenever you come or go. In the Merrian Carver instance, I
believe that the passes were not being swiped at the
termination of the cruise. And I believe that has been changed
throughout the ICCL membership, so that every passenger, when
leaving the ship at the end of the cruise, has to swipe the
card. So now we have a record of anyone who didn't get off at
the end of the cruise. That was a direct result of the Merrian
Carver incident.
Ms. Brown. Yes, Mr. Bald.
Mr. Bald. Thank you, Congresswoman Brown, and thank you for
your help in your prior life in assisting our many happy guests
and booking cruises on our cruise ships.
To your first point, where you discussed the need to have a
woman involved in situations, our policy is and will continue
to be that the senior-most female officer on board our ship is
assigned as a liaison to any female claim victim. We don't pass
judgment on whether or not her claim is valid. We assign that
woman and she is responsible for interacting on a day to day
basis outside of an investigative component to meet her needs
and to make sure that we are not overlooking something that
would make her experience easier.
Ms. Brown. I also mentioned the medical as far as the
physicians on board. I guess I am talking about hiring
practices as you move forward, that would be helpful.
Mr. Bald. I agree with you completely. In fact, we have
changed the backgrounds of the people that we are looking to
hire at the security department. I have sent my director over
to personally do interviews in furtherance of a pilot project
that we have on board. I have given them specific instructions
to include women in that hiring process. We have actually been
successful in recruiting some very outstanding women to play a
role in security for us.
Mr. Kaye. And one last point, Mr. Chairman, if I can
briefly make this, the cruise industry since 1993, I believe,
has had a very close working relationship with the American
College of Emergency Physicians. Starting in, I believe, 1995,
we adopted the American College of Emergency Physicians
recommendations and guidelines for cruise ship medical care,
which includes many, many things. But to address your point,
they include only using licensed physicians who have certain
levels of experience in certain areas, typically emergency
medicine. Emergency medicine physicians, in turn, typically
have experience with rape victims and trauma victims. So that
is why most of the members carry rape kits and are equipped to
use them.
Mr. Cummings. Members, we have nine minutes before the
vote. If you have questions, please. Mr. Taylor?
Mr. Taylor. Mr. Bald, I am curious. A previous panel that
had said, and I want you to tell me if this is correct or not,
that a theft of less than $10,000 is not investigated by the
FBI. Is that accurate?
Mr. Bald. Sir, my understanding is that the FBI is
implementing a prosecutive threshold established by the United
States Attorneys Office that says anything below $10,000 loss
will not be prosecuted federally. That does not mean that it
doesn't end up getting looked at by law enforcement. In fact,
we will refer a situation below $10,000 to a State or local or
foreign law enforcement agency if the FBI declines to pursue
the investigation.
Mr. Taylor. Okay. For instance, cruise ship sails out of
New Orleans. So you are going to tell me, with all of New
Orleans' problems right now, lack of a police force right now,
basically if $9,000 is stolen from a passenger on a cruise ship
that sails out of New Orleans, do you think it is going to get
investigated?
Mr. Bald. We will report that to the FBI. If the FBI tell
us they will not investigate it, we will do our very best to
find a law enforcement agency that will. As you can appreciate,
the United States Attorneys Office sets thresholds. It does
have an impact on us and on our guests.
Mr. Taylor. When you said everything that should have been
done with regard to Ms. Dishman's cabin was not done, what
should have been done?
Mr. Bald. Sir, in response, I am going on the information,
some information that has been brought to my attention over the
last week. It came out in a deposition from a crew member. It
was information that was not previously known to Royal
Caribbean. And so generally it falls under the category of
adequately securing the cabin. The cabin was ordered to be
secured. There are now questions that are being raised as to
whether or not that cabin was adequately secured. That is what
I was referring to.
Mr. Taylor. Is there a national registry where under the
subject of let the buyer beware that a potential cruise ship
customer could check out the history of a ship with regard to
both allegations and convictions, resulting from allegations
and actual crimes that took place on a ship or a given vessel?
Mr. Dale. I am not aware of that, Congressman.
Mr. Taylor. Well, I guess my question, Mr. Dale, is what
good does it do to keep track of this if I, for example, wanted
to board a Norwegian Cruise Line ship out of New Orleans, fill
in the blank of a name, if I wanted to check out the record of
that ship before I got on board?
Mr. Dale. The point of sale for our industry begins with
our travel agents. They research the alternatives for their
customers and based on their research they make a
recommendation on the appropriate fit for that customer.
Mr. Taylor. Okay. Lastly, going back to the vice grips,
$12.95, that Wal-Mart was able to keep track of, now I realize
that there are only a limited number of portals at that store.
But I had a very disturbing letter from someone from South
Mississippi who also lost a loved one overboard. With the
limited knowledge I have of maritime issues, I can see the
challenge of trying to keep track of losing people overboard. I
have personally been so seasick where I was tempted to jump
overboard and just kill myself. So I can understand that
situation.
But given people who didn't want to jump, someone who may
have tripped, someone who for whatever reason slipped, has
anyone ever approached your industry with what you considered a
reasonably priced device that would make you aware that someone
has either intentionally or unintentionally fallen off your
vessel?
Mr. Mandigo. Mr. Congressman, we have two pilots that are
being conducted now that address that situation. And cost is
not a factor in it. It is rather expensive, but that is not the
consideration. They look very promising and we should be seeing
results coming up in the next few months as to the ability to
detect a person that goes overboard on a vessel.
Mr. Taylor. Is that from the lack of a signal being
emitted? Is it from a signal that is emitted by contact with
seawater? What triggers the device?
Mr. Mandigo. It is an infrared device with smart technology
to detect heat signals.
Mr. Taylor. In the water?
Mr. Mandigo. Off the side of the vessel.
Mr. Taylor. Okay, so something like a flare.
Mr. Mandigo. Something seen projecting more than minimal
distance off the side of a vessel, based on a heat signature,
it can distinguish if it is a person, sea gull, deck chair.
Mr. Cummings. We are trying to wrap this up. Ms. Matsui?
Ms. Matsui. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we are going to
have to go for a vote. But I must say that, Mr. Bald, you have
been at Royal Caribbean since June, is that right? And from
your testimony, written and which you have talked about here,
it seems like you are moving ahead in a way which we believe is
optimistic.
Mr. Bald. Thank you.
Ms. Matsui. Now, Laurie, I guess you came after Laurie had
her situation. I must say, though, if I didn't know anything
else that was going on today and I just came and listened to
your panel, I would have thought that everything was great. The
cruise industry is fun, it is safe. I really have to say, I
don't believe we would have even come to his point if we could
have this hearing today, if you didn't hear from Laurie, if you
didn't hear from Mr. Carver. Because quite frankly, it is very
difficult to push against an industry like yourself.
So I am hopeful, I know that you expressed your sorrow and
your condolences. But hopefully you go beyond that. Because as
Laurie says, she doesn't want another Ms. Dishman following up.
I must say, I am going to hold your feet to the fire. Because I
want to make sure that we can work together. I think the
victims want to do this. And I think we should tear down those
walls and say we have to work together. Because I want a
successful, safe cruise industry. I want to be able to know
that my constituents or anybody else, and Mr. Kaye, you have
expressed feelings about your own daughters. Well, I want to
make sure that my little granddaughter can go on there, too.
So everyone should take this very personally. If we do
that, I think we are moving in the right direction. Mr.
Chairman, I thank you so much for having this hearing. I know
that everybody appreciates it very much. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you. It is my understanding that Mr.
Larsen has no questions. But thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Matsui, for requesting the hearing. I really
appreciate it. We thank all of you.
I want to be very clear. We are going to revisit this issue
in six months. In six months, I hope that the parties will get
together and work together and see where we can build on, what
we can build on. Mr. Bald, I would appreciate it if you, and
you, Mr. Mandigo, and Mr. Dale would get us--Mr. Kaye said
there are certain things that are already being done. I want to
know what those are. I want to know what things happen from
this day forward, particularly since there is an agreement now
in place.
And to Mr. Carver and Ms. Dishman, we want you to stay in
contact with our staff, so that we can move this along.
I am convinced, I am thoroughly convinced that we can make
a difference. All of us coming together as Americans, we have a
can-do Country. We can do this.
Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 1:45 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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