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Congress Cops Out on Airport Security
By Alan DiCara, Winsted
This is to request that Voice readers join me in demanding that Congresswoman Nancy Johnson and others in Congress immediately pass legislation to create a new, federal force to protect the nation's airports.
Republicans in Congress are easily forgetting New York City's fire and police department heroes, preferring instead to kowtow to lobbyists for contract security firms whose efforts on September 11 failed us all. To leave airport security in the hands of these contractors and their underpaid, ill-trained employees is to invite more disaster. Write Congresswoman Johnson on this. Following is my open letter to her.
Dear Congresswoman Johnson: In these very difficult times, it is unimaginable that some in Congress are saying they will not change federal law to make our airports more secure by opposing the federalizing of our airport security force.
May I humbly submit that those union members in New York City, the "finest" and the "bravest" who selflessly responded with their lives to the plight of innocent civilians at the World Trade Center, were union members. The government employed them. They raced in their emergency vehicles with no thought of political philosophies. Their families, friends and surviving coworkers, who later raised our flag over their remains, stated later that those who had died trying to save lives were not victims—that they knew what they were doing and what risks they were taking. They were just doing their jobs, as their surviving coworkers still are.
Which is more than you in Congress are doing right now. How shameful it is that some in Congress have failed to respond, and quickly, to protect American lives at the nation's airports.
Please ask those in Congress to try to emulate those union members who died trying to save lives in New York. Ask them to be brave and not to take any more campaign finance money from airport security firms' lobbyists. Pass laws immediately to provide a professional, federalized security force at the nation's airports to protect all Americans.
Frankly, I'd feel a lot more secure knowing some union brothers and sisters, like those in New York, were looking out for our nation's and my family's security. How the FBI intends to share any information with any alternate subcontracting firms now lobbying your august body is beyond me, and hopefully beyond the scope of new security regulations.
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