More Problems for Port Security Program

The port security program created to improve homeland security after 9/11 has hit another snag, and some are worried it could slow down commerce during the holiday season.

The Associated Press’ Eileen Sullivan is reporting that House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson said ID card applications for about 3,000 seaport workers were inadvertently deleted by the program’s contractor, Lockheed Martin.

“The department’s implementation of the program has been an abysmal failure,” Thompson wrote in a letter last week to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Sullivan says the IDs are part of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or TWIC, program. At least 150 workers have been told by their port operators that they cannot work until they have the secure card.

A Transportation Security Administration spokesman told Sullivan the agency discovered the deleted applications over the summer. “Once these workers were contacted, their applications were expedited and the situation was quickly alleviated,” TSA spokesperson Greg Soule told Sullivan.

However, Sullivan says the delays are just another problem the program has faced since its inception six years ago. Ed Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department, told Sullivan that, “You could call it a comedy of errors, but you can’t, because it’s not funny.”