Three stories in this week’s news put a face on the complexity and absurdity in the huge task of screening airline passengers. Wired’s story, Feds' Watch List Eats Its Own, reports that a stroll through the Transportation Security Administration’s call-center logs shows that even feds with security clearances are repeatedly getting challenged at airports. Of course, these ironies get stacked up against the octogenarians, toddlers and other legitimately harmless passengers who get stopped because their names (or names similar to theirs) are on the terrorist watch list.
Meanwhile, TSA Administrator Edmund (Kip) Hawley made a comment this week that ruffled some feathers. According to the article in the National Journal's Technology Daily, those passengers who’ve signed over their personal info, paid a fee and submitted to a background check might not get the speedy trip through airport security they expected. "We are not going to let the Registered Traveler program, which is a great idea, become a potential tool for terrorists to beat the system period," Hawley said.
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