OXFORD, MD. — As owners of one of the oldest ferry services in America, Tom and Judy Bixler steer their craft across the narrow Tred Avon River dozens of times each summer day to link two sleepy Chesapeake Bay towns known for crabs, not jihadists.
"The ferry goes pretty slowly," Judy Bixler said of the seasonal service, which dates back to 1683. "It's not like someone could commandeer it and go anywhere."
But under a little-known domestic security program, the Bixlers and about 1.2 million other Americans and qualified visa holders must pay as much as $132.50 each to obtain a high-tech government ID card that certifies they are not maritime terrorists.
To get the Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or TWIC, each applicant undergoes a security threat assessment. Fingerprints and other details are checked against lists of known or suspected terrorists, major criminals and immigration violators. The card is valid for five years.
"We see this as quite a big step forward in terms of security," said Maurine Fanguy, TWIC director at the Transportation Security Administration, which runs the program along with the U.S. Coast Guard.
Critics, however, call it a waste of resources and a bureaucratic morass. The requirement has drawn the most ridicule for netting bait salespeople, charter fishing boat skippers and others who don't enter military bases, carry nuclear materials or otherwise pose an obvious threat to national security.
Congress mandated the program to tighten security around the nation's ports. An 18-month registration drive is heading toward its final deadlines and largest ports: The new IDs will be required in New York harbor on Monday and in Houston, Los Angeles and Long Beach on April 14.
After that, longshoremen, mariners, ships' crews, truck drivers, vendors and other dockworkers must carry the card -- or get an approved escort -- to legally enter 3,200 U.S. maritime facilities from Guam to Miami and to work on any of about 10,000 licensed vessels, including the Bixlers' ferry.
Homeland Security Department officials say the TWIC is the most comprehensive biometric smart card program in the world. Each card carries a chip with an encrypted scan of the holder's 10 fingerprints to confirm his or her identity.
But although the cards are mandatory, devices to check a person's fingerprints against the data on the card are not yet required. A pilot project and testing of prototype technology is expected to last all year.
