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Secure Flight Finally Set to Take Off Soon |
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by Mickey McCarter
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Wednesday, 10 September 2008 |
TSA expects to publish final rules in November and to begin program in January
James Robinson is constantly stopped by airport security officials whenever he flies because his name appears on the US terrorist watch list. He is always eventually cleared to board his flight after delays, but his family would like to avoid the inconvenience of the delays forever by clearing him from the watch list.
Clearing Robinson should be easy, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee told officials from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in a hearing Tuesday, particularly as he is only eight-years-old.
"Regretfully, James' story is among many about which we have heard recently. It is imperative that the watch list is accurate and narrowly tailored so that it only includes individuals who may wish to do our country harm," Jackson Lee declared.
The answer lies in the Secure Flight program, which TSA plans to start in January, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley told the hearing. After years of delays, TSA anticipates the publication of a final rule for the implementation of Secure Flight in November.
In 2009, TSA will take the administration of terrorist watch lists away from US airlines for domestic flights and check air passengers against it in a uniform way that addresses congressional concerns about the watch list. TSA will then assume administration of the watch list from US Customs and Border Protection for international flights in fiscal 2010.
Hawley expressed confidence that TSA has developed a system that satisfied ten conditions mandated by Congress in the Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2005 (PL 108-334).
Those conditions include a functional redress system, operational safeguards, secure information in the watch list, and others. Hawley estimated the cost of implementing Secure Flight to equal roughly $1 billion over 10 years for TSA.
Because individual airlines check the watch list at present, air passengers experience many differences in how their names could be flagged, thereby delaying them. The DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (DHS TRIP), designed to clear passengers to board flights even if a name similar to theirs appears on the watch list, has failed to provide relief in many cases because of the differences in how the airlines use the list, Hawley confessed.
In addition, Hawley was adamant that individual passengers ought not receive a special notification that would allow them to clear the watch list checks because terrorists could attempt to make use of a passenger's "cleared name" if it became public knowledge.
Cathleen Berrick, director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues at Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported TSA had introduced some improvements to the use of the airlines' "no-fly list," derived from the terrorist watch list, by issuing a directive in April to set a uniform baseline for matching names to the list for all airlines.
GAO reviewed the use of the no-fly list by 14 airlines earlier this year to discover that each one used it differently. At least four airlines completely disregarded a list of cleared individuals generated by TSA as a result of DHS TRIP redress because they found it useless.
"If implemented as intended, Secure Flight is expected to better enable the use of passenger names and other identifying information to more accurately match passengers to the subjects of watch-list records," Berrick said.
GAO plans to review the Secure Flight rule and to evaluate whether the program meets the ten congressional conditions set in 2005. That review could take as long as three months to complete, Berrick reported.
Hawley acknowledged that virtually all of the hits on the current no-fly list are misidentifications, but he argued Secure Flight would end those problems. Under Secure Flight, passengers flagged by the no-fly list would be able to present TSA with information such as their date of birth and address in order to demonstrate they are not the same individuals identified in the no-fly list, thereby speeding up the clearance process.
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Mickey McCarter |
| About the author: |
| eNewsletter Editor/Senior Washington Correspondent,
is a journalist with more than a decade of experience in reporting
on
military affairs and information technology.
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