Your editorial (“Felons in the Dock”) of Sept. 29 not only inaccurately presented the position of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) on the issue of port security—which is not surprising since no one at the WSJ bothered to call the union to ask us about it—but also contains several factual inaccuracies.

First, contrary to the WSJ’s assertion, the ILWU does not oppose restricting people convicted of espionage or treason from the docks. These at least can be reasonably argued to suggest someone might be a terrorist risk. But many of the other disqualifying offenses in the DeMint amendment are overly broad. Again, contrary to the WSJ editorial, identity fraud is not listed in the legislation. It does refer to “dishonesty, fraud and misrepresentation,” a perfect example of our contention that DeMint is overly broad and vague.

We do contend that if someone has been convicted of a crime, has paid their debt to society and now is a productive member of society, it would be wrong to punish them a second time by taking away their jobs and destroying their families. That would be double jeopardy and unconstitutional. Is the WSJ advocating eliminating Americans’ long-held civil liberties?

And for what? Your editorial says, “People with a criminal record would seem to be obvious candidates for recruitment of bad guys to infiltrate the docks.” This is an incredible leap of logic if by “bad guys” you mean terrorists.

The ILWU has already submitted its members’ names and dates of birth to the Dept. of Homeland Security to be compared to the government’s terrorist watch list. There were no matches. There are no terrorists working in the ILWU.  So now that all of the longshore workers have been checked and found to be “good guys,” why did the Bush Administration under-fund port security grants to ports such as Los Angeles/Long Beach, the largest port in the U.S?

Let’s approach port security matters with reason. The real threat to our ports doesn’t come from the American workers, who are the first line of defense in the ports, but from the millions of unchecked cargo containers that enter our country every year from all over the world. The ILWU advocates using our limited security resources wisely and focusing our attention and inspection on these containers. Fortunately, in the conference between the Senate and House reason prevailed and the DeMint amendment was almost entirely eliminated from the Port Security Act.

Robert McEllrath
International President
International Longshore and Warehouse Union