Harry William Thompson

I am not against this rule,but would like to see this biometric card be included with or attached to our U.S Merchant Mariners Document (Z-Card) And issued by the U.S Coast Guard,we already go through a back ground check.If that's not good enough than I would suggest that the Coast Guard dig a little deeper.In my personal opinion its a waste of time and money the way it is implemented now for merchant Mariners.I travel to a lot of ports up and down the east coast delivering oil to terminals and all to often I see that it is easy to gain access to these facility's.For someone with bad intentions,most of the terminals lack good security and are very large with again shabby fences and gates with no one guarding them.So why not spend this money on bettering terminals surrounding areas.I do know that they all received money from the federal government to increase their security.But believe me (I am a Barge Captain for over 30 years) when I say this "A child could gain access to most terminals" without anyone knowing it.