1. Reference: (a) U.S. Maritime Advisory 2017-001
    
2. Issue: The U.S. Maritime Advisory System remains a coordinated, multi-agency U.S. Government (USG) notification mechanism involving the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Transportation, and Homeland Security, as well as the intelligence community to streamline, consolidate, and replace outdated maritime threat information cancelled by reference (a).  Since the launch of this system, over 40 U.S. Maritime Advisories and Alerts have been disseminated.
    
3. In response to valuable feedback from U.S. commercial maritime interests, the USG is continuing to improve the U.S. Maritime Advisory System to expeditiously provide maritime threat information to maritime industry interests, including vessels at sea.
    
4. Guidance: This year, the U.S. Maritime Advisory System will initiate a new type of U.S. Maritime Alert to relay urgent maritime related information from other USG sources or international regional maritime security reporting centers (i.e. United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, Maritime Domain Awareness for Trade Gulf of Guinea, Regional Cooperation Agreement on combating Piracy and Armed Robbery, International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Center), when warranted.  These U.S. Maritime Alerts will publish verbatim information from the original source, which will be clearly identified, and will follow a slightly modified format.
    
5. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Department of the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on U.S. foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries and regimes, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other threats to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United ​States.  In some cases, these sanctions may impact maritime trade.  OFAC sanctions information and notices can be found at: https://go.usa.gov/xExEs.  Any questions relating to OFAC sanctions may be emailed to: ofac_feedback@treasury.gov. 
    
6. U.S. Centers for Disease Control Travel Notices may impact commercial shipping interests, especially during overseas crew changes, and can be found at: https://go.usa.gov/xExEN.  U.S. Maritime Alerts and/or Advisories may occasionally be published depending on the scope, urgency, and impact of health threats, but mariners are advised to become familiar with this web resource and refer to it prior to traveling.  
    
7. The new Maritime Global Security website at https://www.maritimeglobalsecurity.org/ offers industry issued best practices and guidance to mariners by geographic region and provides contact and subscription information for regional maritime security reporting centers, particularly in high risk-areas.    
    
8. Those who desire to subscribe to U.S. Maritime Alerts and Advisories may do so through the Maritime Security Communications with Industry (MSCI) Portal at https://www.marad.dot.gov/MSCI. Maritime industry professionals (civilian or military) may also register to receive additional Company Security Officer related information. Although housed on MARAD’s website, all U.S. Maritime Alerts and Advisories are USG interagency (vice solely MARAD) products.
    
9. Contact Information: Questions regarding the U.S. Maritime Advisory System may be emailed to the Global Maritime Operational Threat Coordination Center at GMCC@uscg.mil.  Additional contact information is available on the MSCI Portal. 
    
10. This message will automatically expire on July 1, 2019.

For more information about U.S. Maritime Alerts and Advisories, including subscription details, please visit http://www.marad.dot.gov/MSCI.