Severe Delays for Anti-Terror System at Ports

By Newsday -- After missing two days of work, logging countless hours on the computer and standing in long lines, Mitch Kramer says he has had it with the federal government's post-9/11 port security program.

Five months have passed and Kramer, an Oyster Bay tugboat captain, still does not have the fingerprint identification card that is part of what the government calls a critical national security program.

"We are all supposed to be working together now after 9/11," said Kramer, the president of TowBoat US Oyster Bay. "It just seems like there was never any oversight of how this works."

Kramer is one of 2,000 Long Island port workers who recently began registering for security and criminal-background checks, the first step in the process to get the Transportation Worker Identification Credential.....