Thread: Port - worker ID program for security called flawed

Port-worker ID program for security called flawed
Port workers face delays, red tape
8 commentsby Mimi Hall - May. 19, 2008 12:00 AM
USA Today
Congress in 2002 ordered the Homeland Security Department to issue high-tech identification cards to workers at U.S. ports.

The direction came amid fears that terrorists would try to sneak weapons and operatives into the country through its seaports.

People such as truckers, dockworkers and deck hands are required to submit to fingerprinting and background checks before they are issued a new ID allowing access to the ships, cargo containers, docks and equipment used to move millions of tons of cargo each year.

Maurine Fanguy, chief of the identification program, says the Transportation Security Administration vastly underestimated the number of workers who would need cards.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., decried the TSA's "continued bureaucratic missteps" in implementing the program.

This month, the Homeland Security Department announced another delay and extended the Sept. 25 compliance date to April 15, 2009.

Fanguy defended the delays: "No one is doing a biometric program of this scale and complexity."


Criticism and reports of problems are escalating. Among them:


• Redundant background checks.

Most truckers go through background checks to get licenses to carry hazardous materials, and most barge, towboat and deck hands go through them to get licenses from the Coast Guard.



• Long lines at enrollment centers, jammed telephone help lines, lost enrollment forms.

"This has been a real nightmare," said Steve Golding of Golding Barge Line in Vicksburg, Miss. He says only five of his 75 employees, most of whom applied months ago, have gotten a card.

The slow pace is widespread: At the Port of New York/New Jersey, 13,000 of 125,000 workers have a card.


• Incomplete government criminal databases.

Nearly 5,000 people have received initial disqualification letters because of arrest records or legal problems, according to the TSA. More than 2,000 have appealed.

Laura Moskowitz of the National Employment Law Project says that's because government databases often are not updated when a person who has been arrested is cleared.

NEW ACTION ALERT! PLEASE JOIN IN!


http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-116044.html

If the government is running it, it's sure to be a fiasco.

:


• Redundant background checks.
Most truckers go through background checks to get licenses to carry hazardous materials.

Really, a lot of truckers are illegal aliens and have class 1 driver licenses! They don't need to be checked . Wow!