I can’t imagine why someone born foreign who is now a US citizen would have a problem. The Norwegians, Filipinos, Germans, Polish, Finnish, and others aboard my ship have had no problem getting their TWIC and even received them quicker than some of the Americans. The only one with any problems was one individual who was a US citizen most of her life and changed citizenship to Norwegian.
My main problem is the poor sailors off a Greek/Chinese/Indian/etc. ship that is just in for a brief port call and are held “captive” on board unless the company pays to have an escort (doubt it). One of the few benefits of being a seaman is gone. What about when other countries adopt the same policies? After a long cruise to the <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: ‘Times New Roman’; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA]Mediterranean </span>when we are restricted to the ship with no liberty - how will we feel then?
ISPS has become just like STCW - another agreement the US has signed on to, that we do not honor, spit in the face of the international community,and only implement the parts that are convenient for the USCG. And we wonder why we are so hated worldwide. The IMO/ISPS convention specifically cautioned against this sort of thing.
Perhaps it is all part of the Coast Guard’s plan… Less U.S. Mariners + Less U.S. Flagged ships = Less work for the Coast Guard.
The ISPS was the USCG’s idea. They crammed that down the throat of the IMO. Everyone blindly followed in the wake of Sept. 11th.
A friend of mine with my company lost his TWIC over the side of a ship while on the job. It took him four months and multiple calls by our head honchos to the USCG and Homeland Insecurity to straighten it out…According to him even the Coast Guard wasn’t able to really help at all. He was working with one of the senior members of Homeland Insecurity to straigthen it out and even he couldn’t fix the problem.To make matters worse he was issued the card in one city and then had to move to another, they told him that to be issued a replacement he had to return to the port that issued the original. They told him that they had never considered the fact that a worker may be issued a card and then move to another city. This doesn’t add to our security in any way.
I’ve used my TWIC at airports six times since spring of 2008, and never had any trouble. I guess my charming personality helps.
You can’t freely move to another city or state without proper travel documents from the local Homeland Security Kommisar. Everyone knows that.
Jawohl, Herr Kommandant!
I used my TWIC card for id at the airport last week, and the guy didn’t even blink at it.
On the note of crew’s not being able to get off, I’m currently on a tanker in Germany, and the crew was just in New Jersey (Danish officers, Filipino crew), and they were not allowed off of the ship. They’ve told me that they could have gotten off with an escort at a rate of $150 an hour, minimum 6 hours (I don’t know if that’s true or not). Yet the ship was in Maine before going to Jersey and they were allowed off there. I’m told it was the terminal that wouldn’t let them off.