The Plot Thickens

I Just Can’t Leave “Well Enough” Alone


My recent work as a “Day Laborer” has been a very interesting experience—AND, it has given me an idea. Follow along with me for a few minutes, if you will, while I tell you about it.

Last spring I had the grand idea of doing a story on the issue of “Port Security.” To this end I made an online application for a permit to do sub-contractor work at the Port of Brunswick, Georgia, using the PROPOSED name of a new construction company I had reserved with the Georgia Secretary of State.

Notice that I said “PROPOSED company”, because I hadn’t actually incorporated the company—I have just reserved the name for future use.

Any way…I filled out the form, and low and behold within a couple of days I received an E-Mail confirming my authorization to enter the Port of Brunswick premises. All I had to do to start standing around within inches of ships and their shipments was stop by the guard shack with my photo ID and get my own identification badge made.

WHAT A JOKE!

My company doesn’t actually exist, yet I have approval to enter the Port of Brunswick.

SO MUCH FOR HOMELAND SECURITY.

Now fast forward to my adventures this week.

You would not BELIEVE the number of private security personnel that they have on the new Cloister Hotel Complex jobsite. There are security people everywhere—outside--wandering around directing delivery truck traffic and acting like they are watching out for malcontents and misbehavior.

There is, however, a simple flaw in their security effort, and I have to digress to make my explanation. This hotel facility is a replacement for a building originally built in the early 1900’s.

A whole bunch of famous, and sometimes even really important people have stayed at the Cloister over the years. Former President George HW Bush and his wife Barbara Honeymooned there back in the dark ages, and celebrities of every genre continue to call Sea island home for days if not months every year.

Now here is my fragile security angle.

All a terrorist has to do TODAY is work a few days as a “day laborer,” paying attention to what is going on regarding security like I have. Once they have learned the security procedures, then they can march right into this complex wearing a hard hat and safety glasses and have complete, unfettered access to almost any space in the building—carrying a toolbox full of radio controlled pipe bombs or Anthrax or almost any other thing they care to bring into the building.

The hotel is scheduled to open next month, but I say that they are actually looking at May or June, and rumor has it that they are sold out at $700 minimum per night for the next two years. Mr. Jones (the owner) would freak over one minor incident caused by some solo malcontent, and an organized effort could actually cause an international incident.

As a result, it is frightening to me that there is no identification requirements to enter this jobsite. All you have to do is show up in the contractor parking lot looking like a contractor and the Sea Island bus will pick you up and deliver you to the front door of the hotel construction site--AT NO CHARGE!

As a comparison, almost every single major industrial jobsite I have worked on in the past required that you qualify for and display a parking permit for your vehicle if you parked on their property and more importantly, that you receive and at all times wear a special photo identification while working.

You could not walk or drive onto their property without your ID, and all they were usually worried about was industrial espionage and the resulting theft of trade secrets, not terrorism.

No such measures are required at Sea Island’s Cloister complex.

I’m thinking about pissing everyone off and doing some further writing about these issues and delivering the results to the local newspapers.

Talk about stirring up a hornet’s nest…but I'm afraid that I can't resist the opportunity to stir the pot up here a little more...

(look for the film on the eleven o'clock news)