The New York Times reported today that the Transportation Security Administration sent a letter to at least four graduate students at MIT informing them that the agency turned down their request for an identification card to work at the nation's ports. The letters noted the students were "security threats."
The students had applied for a so-called Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or TWIC, card, a program the federal government created after 9/11 to tighten security at the nation's ports. The deployment of TWIC has been delayed for months for numerous reasons.
The Times article cites two cases, one involving a German student, the other a British student. In the rejection letters, John Busch, who is identified as a security administration official, wrote, "I have determined that you pose a security threat."
The statement unnerved the students as well as MIT officials, who now worry that the threat determination may be attached to the students' identities in other government databases linked to student visas, customs and airport security. TSA has sent about 5,000 similar letters to other applicants nationwide who applied for the cards.
TSA officials said the statement was "an unfortunate choice of words" but said the agency would not send replacement letters with the sentence deleted. The officials added that the rejection would not cause the students problems with future student visas or when going through airport security.
The TSA officials - spokeswoman Ellen Howe and TWIC program manager Maurine Fanguy - said it is customary for TSA to turn down foreign students for the ID cards and that if they need to work at a port, as an oceanography student does, he or she would have to be escorted by someone who has a TWIC ID card.
What is unclear, now, is that if the students are not security threats, as TSA officials imply, why don't they qualify for a TWIC card?
COMMENTS
Big Brothers are stinky
HPG 05/15/08 07:53 am ET
Dear Foreign Coalition Allies of the United States,
Please be advised that we reserve the right to consider any of your citizens that study advance science and technology subjects in the US, at our universities, to be potential 'security threats'.
We do hope your citizens and governments will not be put off by this forward thinking DHS policy to protect the American people.
We still of course do expect that you all will just continue to send to the US, your best and brightest citizens to work and study with us.
We also trust that regardless of this policy initiative, that you will also continue to share threat information with us and to collaborate openly with us in relevant global matters of national security.
Cordially yours,
Your really 'good buddies' @ DHS
PS: If we happen wreak a few of your really smart citizens lives with a few of our 'screening out the bad guys' letters and 'black lists' we trust you and your smart people will get over it in a few decades.
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"Ms. Howe and Maurine Fanguy, who oversees the new ID card program, said that most foreign students did not qualify for the identity cards, but that the letters were not intended to label the recipients as potential terrorists. (Some applicants are also turned down because of criminal records.)
Mr. von Appen, 23, one of at least four oceanography students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who received identical letters, said he was stunned by its language.
“I was pretty much speechless and quite intimidated,” said Mr. von Appen, whose research is supported by a $65,000-a-year grant from the National Science Foundation.
A British student at M.I.T. who was rejected, Sophie Clayton, 28, said that at first she was amused at what appeared to be a bureaucratic absurdity. But as she pondered the designation, Ms. Clayton said she grew worried. “The two words ‘security threat’ are now in the files next to my name, my photograph and my fingerprints,” she said." [Quote Source NY Times article]
zz ziled 05/15/08 12:33 am ET
If TSA has "determined that you are a security threat". Why are they not more specific? Is national security so threatened that the applicant cannot be told the specifcs of the decision?
JD Wade 05/14/08 02:38 pm ET