ABC News is reporting that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey gave out ID cards that give all-areas access to their ports in the New York City and Newark areas with virtually no background checks. The Department of Homeland Security recently investigated the ports and found that, among 9,000 truckers investigated, nearly half had criminal records, including homicide, assault, weapons charges and drug dealing, and more than 500 used bogus driver’s licenses to obtain their Port Authority ID cards. The ABC story goes on to detail the presence of at least one MS-13 member and a recent incident involving “four cabs without containers (which) exited the terminal without stopping at the red light and ignored verbal commands to stop.”
While the DHS found similar problems at other ports nationwide, problems that expose “vulnerabilities that could be capitalized by terrorist organizations”, the focus on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey should ring the irony bells. They owned the World Trade Center complex, which was completely destroyed on 9/11.
