Thousands of airport screeners haven't had backgrounds checked WASHINGTON (AP) =97 About 22,000 of the 55,000 airport screeners hired by= the=20 government haven't undergone criminal background checks, the chairman of=20 the House Transportation aviation subcommittee said Friday. Rep. John Mica,= =20 R-Fla., said he has told the Transportation Security Administration it must= =20 speed up the process to ensure qualified people are doing the work. "It is= =20 a concern because one of the reasons we federalized this in the first place= =20 was because there hadn't been background checks, or standards for=20 background checks, before Sept. 11," Mica said. Fewer than 1% of those=20 checked had a criminal background, Mica said. Not all have been fired,=20 however, even though that would be required under TSA rules. After the=20 Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Congress ordered the federal government to= =20 take over the screening duties from private companies at 424 commercial=20 airports. The rules said all screeners would undergo criminal history=20 checks. Hiring tens of thousands of people proved an enormous task for the= =20 TSA, created shortly after the attacks. The lengthy process of completing=20 background checks couldn't be accomplished before the Nov. 19 deadline to=20 have them all in place, Mica said. Normally, screeners are not deployed at airports until they have had=20 criminal history checks by the FBI and by a Justice Department contractor,= =20 ChoicePoint Inc., said TSA spokesman Brian Turmail. ChoicePoint also=20 investigates applicants' employment history and interviews their=20 acquaintances by phone, Turmail said. The Office of Personnel Management,=20 an independent government agency, follows up with a six-month background=20 check, which involves contacting, in writing or in person, former employers= =20 and neighbors, Turmail said. If either check reveals a screener has=20 committed a felony, the worker has a chance to rebut the information. If=20 the appeal is rejected, the screener is fired immediately. Some screeners=20 with apparent criminal records who have not been fired are appealing their= =20 cases, Turmail said. At New York's Kennedy International Airport, more than= =20 50 screeners were found to have criminal records, according to Sen. Charles= =20 Schumer, D-N.Y. He said he is perturbed that only two dozen of those have=20 been fired. Cynthia Cavalie, a screener at Kennedy, said it's "concerning=20 because you don't know who you're working with." Lynne Holley, a screener=20 at Chicago's Midway Airport, said background checks are under way now. "While we've been working there eight going on nine months, just now you're= =20 doing our background checks?" Holley said. Peter Winch is national organizer for the American Federation of Government= =20 Employees, which has filed petitions to represent workers at 18 airports.=20 He said most of the screeners are honest and hardworking and feel they're=20 being stigmatized by the government's failure to check backgrounds=20 adequately. Mica said he might propose a bill to create an additional=20 criminal penalty for falsifying information on TSA employment forms.=20 "They'll get there and sort out the bad guys," Mica said. "It's part of a=20 problem of establishing what's turned out to be the biggest bureaucracy in= =20 the name of security since World War II." *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.caribbeanfloral.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************