The Questionable Security System That Gave Felons Access to Navy Installations

For years, hundreds of thousands of contractors seeking regular access to key Navy installations have merely paid a fee and typed identifying information into ATM-like machines installed on those bases. They were then able to gain temporary access without first going through a background check, even though Navy and White House regulations require such checks be completed beforehand.

Known as Rapidgate, the access control system is now in operation for contractors, vendors, service workers, and suppliers who regularly pass through not just Navy checkpoints – but also those at more than 150 military and government installations around the country, including the Washington Navy Yard, the site of the Sept. 17 shooting rampage.

Last week, an internal Pentagon report called into question how the Rapidgate system became so widely used by the Navy and urged its immediate cancellation at those sites, saying it provides a false sense of security that puts government personnel at risk. The Navy, it said, had contracted for the system through irregular acquisition practices.

Included among its current users are the Virginia Beach base where Navy Seal forces train, the Naval Observatory in Washington that includes the residence of the Vice President, the Maryland site of the Army’s top security chemical and biological laboratories, 15 major U.S. Army bases, the Coast Guard’s academy in Connecticut and its headquarters in Washington, and the Navy’s Trident ballistic missile submarine bases in Connecticut and Georgia, according to the website of Rapidgate’s operator, Eid Passport, Inc., based in Oregon.

Read more at The Atlantic.

(Image by fotosenmeer via Shutterstock)