Time right for decal change

  • Published
  • By Col. William D. Sellers
  • Headquarters Air Force Security Forces
WASHINGTON (AFPN) --  Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley recently ended the use of the DD Form 2220, commonly called a "base decal," on Air Force installations due to cost, a lack of utility and long-term threats facing our bases.

Base security forces Airmen now check the ID card of each motorist entering an installation.

The DD Form 2220, typically displayed on a vehicle's windshield, mitigates against serious security and cannot be trusted or relied on for entry onto any Air Force base.

It was developed in the 1970s to implement a vehicle registration and traffic management system, not to bolster security. At that time, a nationwide vehicle registration database did not exist, insurance was not required by all states and a process was needed to expedite vehicle entry onto installations. There was a clear and definable need for this system.

More than 30 years later the Department of Defense vehicle registration system is highly vulnerable to terrorism, insurance is now mandatory nationwide and a national vehicle registration system is used by all civilian and military police departments throughout the country.

In the past, installation commanders worried about the time to access their bases. Now the priority is not expediting entry, but knowing who is entering.

Air Force officials currently are working with their sister service counterparts to allow Air Force people to enter other service installations via use of the common access card or appropriate identification, or by issuing them a DD Form 2220, which would allow them to be in that service's database.

In most cases, Air Force people visit another service's installations to spend money at their exchanges, commissaries or other facilities, which translates into funds for their Soldiers, Sailors and Marines. Installation commanders want Air Force people to visit their bases.

Some within the Defense Department feel the registration system still has utility, regardless of inherent weaknesses. Many viewed it as a layer of security, though it was designed to expedite entry, not enhance security. Service representatives have spent millions on entry points at their installations, but have failed to review the process of how they allow entry onto an installation. The strength of a redesigned gate is defeated if the process to enter is flawed. The first line of defense becomes irrelevant.

The system has been allowed to exist simply because nobody ever questioned its core value. Every service member has grown up with it and accepted it as a necessary part of military life.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, expediting entry onto our installations was no longer the priority and the vehicle decal was no longer used; Air Force officials began questioning the value of the vehicle registration system in 2005 and, facing a continued terrorism threat, decided they had to opt out of the program. During this time Defense Department officials, because of the growing terrorist threat, discontinued use of the decal for general officers and high ranking civilians. Air Force officials believe this courtesy should be given to all Airmen.

Federal laws already require motorists to have a legal driver's license issued by a state, proof of vehicle ownership and state registration, evidence of insurance and safety and emissions' inspections. A national vehicle registration system is used by all civilian and military police departments in the country.

The hidden costs of DOD personnel losing productivity due to the time required to acquire the DD Form 2220 is in the millions. The costs of administratively maintaining the program is substantial, and the system simply duplicates state and federal mandatory requirements.

Security forces Airmen don't even use the Defense Department vehicle registration system to track someone. Instead, they use the National Criminal Information Center's National Law Enforcement Terminal System, which provides real time accurate driver and vehicle data. It allows access to local, state and federal law enforcement agency databases. It is vastly superior to the DD Form 2220 database, enhances officer safety, is much more cost effective and, most importantly, provides fused nationwide information used by all.

If a vehicle from a Navy base is illegally parked on an Army installation, the military police cannot use the DD Form 2220 to track it because the services don't share their data bases with each other. They have to use the license plate number or vehicle identification number via the civilian law enforcement databases. This provides better security than a base decal ever did because:

* a vehicle displaying a base decal could have been sold with the decal still on it;
* its owner may have left the service and failed to remove the decal;
* the number on the decal could be duplicated;
* the decal could be counterfeited;
* the decal may have been removed from another vehicle; or
* the vehicle may have been stolen.

Due to the accuracy and quality of the civilian databases, Air Force officials quit using the DD Form 2220 database. These problems prohibit Air Force security forces from tying it to vehicle access in any form.

No other major government entity has a vehicle registration system. In order to be granted access to the federal government's most sensitive and secure locations, a valid government identification card, common access card or appropriate credentials are used. A recent presidential directive establishes the common access card as the one access mechanism for entry onto federal facilities.

As a servant of the public's trust, the Air Force cannot continue to waste precious resources on this non-value added system. It was a valid process in the 1970s when the terrorist threats of today were not comprehensible, but using it now puts the military in serious danger of losing credibility with its own personnel and the general public.

The threat is here, it's real and we must continuously improve our processes and procedures to meet today's needs.

(Editor's note:  Colonel Sellers is the Air Force chief of force protection and operations for security forces) 

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