> -----Original Message----- > From: Mark Mowery > After reading the information on the TWIC web page, I can see the > usefulness of having such a document available to the proper authorities, >>>>>>>>>>>>> snip <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> To use current text message shorthand: WTF? REPLY WTF is right!! The ripple effect spreads wider than you realize. A friend who is a Canadian citizen also has to get a TWICS. He is a long haul trucker and his company has a contract to deliver custom built (in Canada) trailers to Tacoma WA, Long Beach CA and Port Elizabeth NJ. In order to deliver these ovesize trailers to the customer inside the Port Authority, he must have a TWICS. He can't just drop the load at the gate either. To add insult to injury he must pay the full cost of this new ID card himself. He already had to get a new US government issued ID card for border crossings last year which cost him $150 and now he has to get another card?? Obviously none of these various bureaucracies talk to one another. Or is the government saying their own back ground checks for passports and border crossing clearance is inadequately done by incompetents? In addition, the US is demanding that Canada institute US style security in major Canadian ports. Especially those where containers bound for the US by land are transhipped. However all the truck drivers employed in the work of moving the containers out of the Port of Vancouver and trucked down to Seattle or Tacoma happen to belong to a group that wears long strips of cloth wrapped around their head. How will they pass the required veting for a TWIC? They are landed immigrants from a nation the US is at war with. They belong to a militant group designated as hostile to US interess. Some of them are over here on refugee status because they objected to their past country's government action, but as far as the US is concerned, they are still a security risk. If their application for TWIC is refused, it will effectively shut down container traffic from Vancouver to Seattle. But the reason for Vancouver handling the over flow to the US port is because Seattle cannot handle the shipping volume. The reason why these guys are doing the trucking is because the pay and working condition is so crappy no one else but an immigrant will take the job. There is speculation that massive disruptions to truck traffic into ports will occur after Sept 25 when some or many of the estimated one million affected workers cannot go to work for lack of a TWIC. In effect it will be a lock out not a strike. Welcome to the brave new world of 1984. Arild _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
