TWIC misses yet another deadline

It is not easy to come up with the name of another federal security program which has missed more deadlines than the Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or TWIC. The program was supposed to equip some 750,000 port workers with biometric IDs — and it was was supposed to be put in place in 2003. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was also supposed to implement the program at ten ports by July, but an official said this week that the agency will miss that deadline, too.

TWIC has been hobbled by its enormous size and by technology, TSA officials say. Electronic readers for the identification cards, which will be embedded with the holder’s personal information and fingerprints, still are not ready, for example. “We’re now saying it will be the fall at the port of Wilmington,” said Darrin Kayser, a TSA spokesman. “Shortly after, within a matter of weeks, we’ll roll it out at multiple other ports.”

Susan Monteverde, vice president of government relations for the American Association of Port Authorities, said TSA should not roll out a system that doesn’t improve security at the nation’s 361 ports. “We know it’s been delayed,” she said. “However, we support TSA because what they want to do is make sure the system works before they go ahead and implement something.”

Baltimore Sun’s Meredith Cohn reportsthat at least initially, there are not enough readers to go around, so security guards will be needed to look at the cards until these readers are installed. Port employees who need to have the cards, such as longshoremen, contractors, and managers, also have concerns about the cost to them — expected to be an estimated $139 to $159 per card, good for five years.