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Dec 11, 2016

The Transportation Worker Identification Card * USA - The TWIC card

* DC - US truck lobby urges broader use of TWIC card


---  The head of the largest US trucking lobby believes costly multiple background checks and identification methods for truck drivers should be replaced with one single card. Fortunately, we already have it — the Transportation Worker Identification Card, or TWIC... The TWIC card should be the sole identification issued to truck drivers for security purposes, Chris Spear, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations, told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday... The goal should be one card, one security threat assessment, or STA... Since the TWIC program took effect nine years ago, more than 3.5 million TWIC cards have been issued, and 2.1 million are currently active. About 700,000 truck drivers have acquired TWIC cards since 2007, Spear said. The cards, however, aren’t accepted as proof of an STA background check when drivers apply for other credentials, such as HMEs... 
 (Photo: Customs officers check a TWIC card at the Port of Baltimore) -- Washington, DC, USA - JOC, by William B. Cassidy - Dec 08, 2016

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posted by Unknown @ 5:18 AM  0 comments

Mar 28, 2010

TWIC * USA - Enrollment passes 1.5 million, including 277,000 truck drivers

Washington,DC,USA -Land Line Magazine -March 25, 2010: ... According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 1,518,821 workers had been enrolled by mid-March. Enrollments include 261,149 applicants counted as truck drivers, and another 16,687 classified as drayage truckers... The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has been critical of several TSA processes during the TWIC rollout, including the price of enrollment and the ability of foreign nationals to access ports without background checks required by TWIC applicants from the U.S... Standard TWIC enrollment costs $132.50, although workers with “current, comparable” threat assessment background checks such as hazmat endorsements, Merchant Mariner Documents or Free and Secure Trade (FAST) cards may obtain a TWIC card for $105.25. The card is designed to last five years... (Photo from 2.bp.blogspot: TWIC card technology)

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posted by Unknown @ 8:30 AM  0 comments

Jul 14, 2009

Report * USA - TWIC has cost 10,000 port workers, others their jobs

Washington,DC,USA -Land Line Magazine -July 13, 2009: -- Most major U.S. ports now require the Transportation Worker Identification Credential for truck drivers, longshoremen and other workers after the Transportation Security Administration rolled out enrollment and enforcement during the last year.. In that time, however, at least 10,000 jobs have been lost because of delays and hangups in the TWIC system, according to one study recently made public... The National Employment Law Project released a study last week, which says that TSA background checks left workers unemployed for 69 days on average as the agency sorted out criminal records and immigration status of TWIC applicants... The report also says:

* Workers challenging initial TWIC denials waited seven months for their TWIC.
* White workers were approved within six months, on average, while black workers waited 200 days on average and Latino port workers waited an average of 243 days.
* Of the 54,000 initial denials issued by TSA, 13,148 of the applicants never filed an appeal. “Given that almost 100 percent of workers who file appeals and waivers are successful, it is likely that these 13,000 denials could have been reduced,” the report states.

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posted by Unknown @ 4:39 PM  0 comments

Mar 24, 2009

TWIC cards * USA - Port offices expanded to process ones, at Long Beach and Los Angeles

Washington,DC,USA -Land Line Magazine, by Charlie Morasch -23 March 2009: -- Many major U.S. ports are about to begin mandatory enforcement of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential, and at least one office will be working rapidly to activate many TWIC cards... Enforcement began at the Port of New York on Monday, March 23. And on April 14, enforcement will begin at ports in the Captain of the Port zones of Guam; Houston/Galveston; Los Angeles and Long Beach; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Port Arthur, TX... Standard TWIC enrollment costs $132.50, although workers with “current, comparable” threat assessment background checks such as hazmat endorsements... The card is designed to last five years...

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posted by Unknown @ 11:22 AM  0 comments

Jan 12, 2009

TWIC * USA - New ID deadline approaching

Local employers are gearing up for the deadline of a new security program aimed at tracking people around the nation’s ports and counteracting terrorist activity

Houma,LA,USA -The Daily Comet, by Kathrine Schmidt -January 11, 2009: -- ... As of Tuesday, workers entering many of the nation’s shoreside port areas must have a Transportation Worker Identification Credential, issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration... The program, administered with help from the Coast Guard, was created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to keep better tabs on people in and around the nation’s ports... The largest area of local impact will be Port Fourchon, where Director Ted Falgout said the process has been going fairly smoothly... The tamper-resistant badge grants unescorted access to restricted areas such as those that contain potentially hazardous materials, chiefly fuel or lubrication oil. Drilling muds are exempt. The requirements are expected to apply to over 1.2 million people -- not just industry workers but also the truck drivers, cooks and other support staff... (Photo by Emily Schwarze - Matt Miller -left- and Brandon Dufrene, both of Hammond, fill out paperwork outside the crowded Transportation Worker Identification Credential enrollment center inside the Houma Atrium Thursday)

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posted by Unknown @ 5:43 PM  0 comments

Nov 3, 2008

TWIC * USA - Truckers, port workers say new identification credential no treat

Philadelphia,PA,USA -The Cherry Hill Courier Post (Cherry Hill,NJ), by EILEEN STILWELL -November 2, 2008: -- Casper has a vision for the Delaware River ports come Dec. 30... "I see fruit rotting on the docks, ships waiting to be loaded, prices sky high in the supermarkets, tractor trailers backed up onto roadways," said Casper, manager of DelMonte Fresh Produce, which operates a busy fruit terminal at the Broadway marine terminal in Camden... "It'll be the perfect storm," Casper promised about the start date for a mandatory government identification program that he predicts will paralyze an already tanked economy... About one-third of an estimated 1.2 million seaport workers in the nation who are required to obtain the new credential -- a Transportation Workers Identification Credential (TWIC) -- from the federal Transportation Security Administration have received them, said Leslie Holoweiko, spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin, which is managing the card program... (Photo by JOHN ZIOMEK/Courier Post - John Devenney holds up his Transportation Workers Identification Credential at the registration center next to Broadway Terminal in Camden)

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posted by Unknown @ 12:45 AM  0 comments

Oct 21, 2008

Homeland Security * USA - Issues update on TWIC enrollment

Washington,DC,USA -Land Line Magazine -October 20, 2008: -- The latest report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security states that more than 500,000 people have enrolled in the TWIC program so far. More than 80,000 of those are truckers... According to a news release, more than 22,000 applicants were denied a card –and nearly half of those applicants have appealed.
TWIC cards, which bear the owners’ fingerprints, are required for access to the nation’s ports. They cost between $105 and $132, and the government expects that eventually more than a million of the cards will be issued...

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posted by Unknown @ 6:02 PM  0 comments

Oct 3, 2008

TWIC * USA - GAO Says Half of Workers Have Not Applied for

Nearly a year into the application process, more than half of the estimated 1.2 million U.S. transportation workers have not applied for their Transportation Worker Identification Credential

Washington,DC,USA -Transport Topics, by Eric Miller -1 Oct 2008: -- ... that, beginning April 15, 2009, will be required to gain entrance to all the nation’s ports and other transportation facilities... So far, fewer than 498,000 workers, about 40%, have applied for TWIC cards at 149 fixed and 183 mobile enrollment sites. Of that number, about 319,000 cards have been activated for use, said Stephen Lord, acting director of homeland security and justice issues for the Government Accountability Office... Laura Moskowitz, staff attorney for the National Employment Law Project, said that incomplete FBI records were responsible for the roughly one-third of the 16,000 applicants denied a TWIC... In some cases, FBI records did not show the final disposition of an arrest, while in other cases they did not distinguish whether an offense was a misdemeanor or felony... Moskowitz said that the denials show a “serious problem with the FBI’s records”...

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posted by Unknown @ 6:41 AM  0 comments

Sep 19, 2008

Universal Security Credential * USA - ATA Urges Making TWIC

Arlington,VA,USA -MarketWatch -Sept 17, 2008: -- The American Trucking Associations testified before a House Committee today about the status and uses of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC). Philip L. Byrd Sr., President and CEO of Charleston, S.C.-based Bulldog Hiway Express, spoke on behalf of ATA at a hearing held by the Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism of the House Committee on Homeland Security... Byrd asked the committee to ensure that the TWIC is used as the single, universally accepted security credential for transportation workers that pre-empts all other security and access programs... ATA supports the original concept of TWIC having one enrollment process, one fee and one background check called a security threat assessment (STA), so that it can become a singular credential. Many drivers are now required to have multiple credentials for various ports, government facilities and state-administered security and access programs...

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posted by Unknown @ 8:56 AM  0 comments

Aug 30, 2008

Transportation Worker Identification Credential * USA - More ports set mandatory TWIC enforcement dates

The Transportation Security Administration has released its plan to phase-in requirements of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential card at specific port locations for drivers and other workers needing unescorted access through secured areas

Grain Valley,MO,USA -Land Line Magazine, by Charlie Morasch -August 29, 2008: -- Dec. 30 will be the deadline for TWIC compliance at port zones in Baltimore, MD; Delaware Bay in New Jersey and Delaware; Mobile, AL; the Lower Mississippi River; the Ohio Valley; Pittsburgh, PA, and San Diego, CA.
That means specific ports at Annapolis, MD; Philadelphia, PA; Camden, NJ; Gulfport, MS; Memphis, TN; Cincinnati, OH; Pittsburgh, PA; and San Diego, CA, among others, will be enforcing the TWIC requirement before 2009... The TWIC program will require more than 1.5 million port employees, longshoremen, mariners, truckers and others who require unescorted access to secure areas of ports to have background checks before being issued cards with their biometric data and residency documentation...

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posted by Unknown @ 11:46 AM  0 comments