Port Security - another case of "Boo"?

[Stinky The Clown]

It seems ol' Mickey Mouse Chertoff, the cadaverous head of Faterland Sekurity, has been doin' it. Gittin'er done. Ondajob. Whutsee doin'?

New ID Cards.

DHS to check port workers against terrorist watch lists

By Zack Phillips
[e-mail]
The Homeland Security Department will begin checking the identities of port workers for the first time under a rule announced Tuesday, and soon may take new action on a long-delayed program to issue identification cards for those who access sensitive areas of ports.

The department will begin asking all longshoremen and maritime employees of facility owners and operators - about 400,000 workers, according to DHS - for names and dates of birth to be checked against terrorist watch lists, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday.

Criminal history checks and the collection of biometric information, such as fingerprints, will not be included. But Chertoff promised that the agency soon will publish rules - long awaited in industry circles - spelling out its approach to the Transportation Worker Identification Credential, a biometric-based and tamperproof identification card intended for truck drivers, rail workers and all those who must access sensitive areas of ports. That includes about 850,000 workers, according to DHS.

Chertoff reiterated his prediction that the department would begin issuing TWIC cards this year.

DHS has been criticized by Congress and industry for delays and cost increases in TWIC, conceived of shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. DHS issued about 4,000 TWIC cards to port workers during a prototype phase that ended last June, and industry representatives have been waiting since to hear exactly what kind of technology will be used.

<snip>

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0406/042506z1.htm

Our local teevee station was saying something about 'plans' to run about 50% or 60% of the incoming containers through some kind of 'nukular' screening device (no doubt built by either Raytheon, General Dynamics, or some Hallibutron subsidiary).

So, we're 'sometime' gunna get 'some level' of container screening ...... but we are bygawd fershure gunna sniff every crotch of every port worker and make then hang mug shots around their brown necks.

I am SO FUCKING SICK of the smoke and mirrors bullshit we get from these traiterous thugs who are running our country ....... right into the Third World.

[hobbit709]

1. During the "Cold War"

someone pointed out that there were British and American jails and plush Moscow hotels that were full of people that "had passed their security checks."

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. Since well before 9/11

experts have estimated that the two greatest threats to national security are our inadequacy in checking goods and people that come into our ports and across our borders, and yet we haven't done a single goddamn thing to fix either.

Now, in order to expand our infrastructure to increase our capacity for scanning cargo in our ports, we'd have to invest $1-2 billion, which is a fucking pittance compared to what we've spent on the Iraq War, and you're not even figuring in the needless loss of life by avoiding war and the increase in jobs due to investing more money into our own infrastructure.

[elehhhhna]

3. they are not conducting criminal b/g checks though. RIDICULOUS.

The unions think it's payback to them for sinking the Dubai deal.