Fingerprinting of hazmat truckers begins. Requirement part of USA Patriot Act

CNN ^ | January 31, 2005 | Mike Ahlers

[Mikey]

U.S. drivers of trucks with hazardous materials must be fingerprinted by federal authorities.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The federal government on Monday began an anti-terrorism program requiring truckers who haul hazardous materials to submit to fingerprinting and criminal background checks.

But it's expected to take five years to check all 2.7 million truck drivers, and truckers fear logjams early in the program because there are few places to be fingerprinted.

California has only three fingerprinting sites and Idaho, Oregon, Washington and many other states only have one.

Critics of the program also question whether the new regulation will do much to deter terrorists, noting that nothing in the rule would prevent an attack such as the truck bombing that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1995.

Congress mandated the trucker checks as part of the USA Patriot Act, amid fears that trucks could be used as weapons of mass destruction. While authorities say there are no specific threats involving trucks in the United States, truck bombs are known to be a favorite weapon of terrorists, both domestically and overseas.

In addition to the Oklahoma attack, rented vehicles filled with explosives were used in the 1993 bombing of New York's World Trade Center.

As a stopgap measure in the years since the attacks on September 11, 2001, the Transportation Security Administration has checked the names of approximately 2.7 million hazardous material truckers against lists of known or suspected terrorists. As the result of those checks, the TSA turned over more than 100 leads to the FBI, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

[Mikey]

"...trucks could be used as weapons of mass destruction."

You gotta be kidding? Virtually anything can be used or modified into a weapon off mass destruction. Next it'll be ALL truck drivers. Then ALL taxis, limos, pickups, etc., etc., etc. This is nothing but a ploy to fingerprint everyone so that when the national ID becomes mandatory and eventually the implants, all the info and DNA samples will have already been collected.

Lets see, everyone who scuba dives will have to be finger printed because someone just might tow a nuke (undetected) under the water while they're scuba diving. Maybe everyone who flys RC planes will have to be finger printed because they just might place a load of radioactive materials in one of these planes along with some explosives and fly it over a city and?

What about golfers. They might carry nuke's in their golf bags? Everyone who has a boat might be a potential terrors as well, better get their prints. How about the girl scouts, who really knows what's in all those cookie box's?

A stepping stone to total global governance under the loving whip of the IGNITED UNITED NATIONS

[GSlob]

"CA has 3 fingerprinting sites, Idaho... has 1"
Couldn't one get fingerprinted at any police station? I'd think CA has more than 3 of these.

[glock rocks]

Um, they already had McVeigh's prints. Did a couple tons of good, huh?

[AdamSelene235]

Big Brother is here......and he's retarded.

[ProudVet77]

Wonder if we will ever be able to go back to the way it was?
Sigh....
Some times I want to buy that big boat and sail down to the Caribbean and become my own country.

[G.Mason]

"You gotta be kidding? ... "

Oh ... horror of horrors!

[Mikey]

If the background check reveals that the driver has been convicted of terrorism, espionage, murder or certain other felonies, the driver will be permanently banned from hauling hazardous materials"

Huh, if a driver was "convicted of terrorism, espionage, murder..." How the hell did he get the job in first place?

I like this one; "...or certain other felonies..." It seems that everything under the sun is becoming a "felony". Soon jay-walking will be a felony.

""How honest is a terrorist going to be?" said one representative of a Virginia trucking association."

Just like all these ridiculous gun laws. Are there laws against rape?, yet rapist still rape. Are there laws against stealing?, yet thieves still steal. are there laws against murder?, yet people still commit murder. Criminals and / or terrorists could care less about any law (hence the word "criminal / terrorist" so why care about a gun law or any so-called anti-terrorist law?

[HighlyOpinionated]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just close the borders and run checks on everyone entering the USofA by plane, boat, automobile and space ship?

It's not the truck drivers I'm concerned with, it's the meek appearing Muslim neighbors who may be just waiting for the best time to blow themselves and me to smithereens.

Where is our Country headed?

[ProudVet77]

As I said here once before, my Dad's favorite phrase was "Don't make a federal case of it". Soon as they decide jaywalking is related to civil rights or terrorism or the war on drugs, it will be a federal case.
My Dad would be have been 103, 3 days ago. He was ahead of his time.

[WindOracle]

I am dubious about how much good this will do, but I am still not too worried about it. I drive trucks for a living, and am currently sitting in the cab of my freightliner with my laptop, in a truck-stop.

About 10% of our loads, maybe a bit less, are hazmat. This rating is required for hauling everything from explosives and poisons, to aspirins and cooking oil.

When I drove for Rhoel, the safety officer one day told us that our turnover rate was 800% the previous year! This means that they hired, trained, lost and replaced their ENTIRE driver force 8 times over the course of the year. Most of these are kids straight out of driver school, who then get 20 days with a trainer on the road. Replacement rates were so high that a company with 1500 trucks has to train about 20 new recruits each week, at EACH of it's main terminals.

Most of the drivers you see on the road, have been there less than a year. The pay is good, but the lifestyle sucks, and most do not last long.

Truck schools, or license mills, process these kids thru most of whom are BARELY able to back the trailer into a dock. Two months later, you may have him rolling up on your ass with 80,000 pounds of poison.

So, I guess I can live with it, not because it will help much on the terrorism thing, but maybe it will help weed a few losers out, maybe not.

[glock rocks]

ping.

[SpaceBar]

As soon as you put such safeguards in place, those who seek to defeat the system will simply steal/hijack a hazmat truck. So now you have to consider giving hazmat truckers the ability to carry firearms in their cabs independent of the state they happen to be passing through at the time.

[MD_Willington_1976]

They could get fingerprinted at the local INS/DHS building, I was fingerprinted at the local police office and at the INS building...

[dirtboy]

A relative of mine drives hazmat materials around. He said something strange the other day - that a federal law had required that he surrender his Pennsylvania Concealed Carry Permit because he was a hazmat driver. Although I could possibly see the fedgov doing something that stupid (and printing "Hijack Me - I'm Unarmed!" stickers to put on the back of trucks in case local terrorists are unfamiliar with the law in question) - I would like some kind of confirmation on this if anyone has heard of it. And also, please don't go reporting this as truth until we get a link to actual legislation or federal rules.

[Chef Dajuan]

Its high time they did this. They should also do it with ship crewmen and railroad employees.

Why are you upset? Its no infringement on any of the rights in the BoR.

And it just might save your life, or the life of someone you love.

[Mikey]

"Wouldn't it be cheaper to just close the borders and run checks on everyone entering the USofA by plane, boat, automobile and space ship?"

WHAT CLOSE THE BORDERS? But that wouldn't be fair to all those illegals coming over here to all those benefits. ()

That would ;

1). Offend all those illegals and,
2). take away all those potential voters and
3). Slow down the progress of the national ID card,
4). Slow down the eventual mandatory bi-chip implant. For your own good of course.
5). Make way too much sense.

'Where is our Country headed? "

For oblivion. What will be ushered in will be the NEW WORLD ORDER controlled and regulated by the UNITED NATIONS and most of the people (as long as their comfort isn't disturbed) will gladly welcome it with opened arms and closed eyes and minds.

A gilded cage is STILL a cage.

"The Constitution will never be restored by appeals to Idealism or Patriotism. It might only be restored IF the people believe it is to their personal economic advantage to do so.”

-- Mark Felton, political philosopher and activist

[Mikey]

I remember that old saying from a few of my uncles and aunts.

[Mikey]

I was an o/o for around 10 years or so. Before that I drove for a friend for 5 years. We went 50/50 on an old (1989) Freight-shaker COE 140" WB. It had a 350 Comapart engine, 9spd tranny. I pulled for NAVL Crane division. Then we moved on to Triple Crown over in Pennsylvania (that's where we went 50/50 on the freight-shaker). Then we transfered to dedicated Xerox. Eventually we split NAVL and went to RFX pulling reefers.

I don't know about you, but to me the whiz quiz was offensive. I got a random pulled on me once in all those years and it made me feel like a criminal. This finger-printing thing will be saying (as with the whiz quiz) YOU ARE A CRIMINAL / terrorist until you prove (via an FBI check) that your not.

Finger printing is going to do NOTHING to stop terrorists or bad driver's for that matter. maybe you don't give a sh*t about your liberty, but I and a few other patriotic Americans do.

[WindOracle]

Lol, consider yourself lucky. I have peed in a cup a dozen times in the last 3 years. Not to mention all the bullshit we have to go thru every time I cross into Canada and back. I guess I could get offended about being made to feel like a criminal when they want to look in my truck when I come back into the U.S., but I was personally glad to see our boys on the border doing the job.

I guess being made to do it is a little irritating to some, but I would be willing to do the tests and inspections even if they had to ask my permission. You of all people should be familiar with some of the STUPID dudes that are out on the road. And I am sure you have heard as many guys talking over the CB in truck-stops about smoking dope as I have. I do not want them out there on the road with me. And every time one of them DOES get messed up on drugs, and kills a bunch of people, he hurts OUR reputations and makes your job, and mine, that much harder.