What’s in a name? For some travelers flying to, from and around the United States since the 2001 terrorist attacks, it’s everything.
And fliers whose names resemble or match those on the government’s no-fly list, which officials use to ground air passengers, won’t catch a break at the check-in counter as long as the Bush administration’s Secure Flight initiative goes unfunded, the Homeland Security Department’s screening chief said today. The administration has requested $74 million for the program for fiscal year 2008.
The Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly list, which lists only people suspected of being a threat to commercial aviation, is a smaller version of the Terrorist Screening Center’s (TSC) national watch list, a database of more than 800,000 records on 300,000 people, including their names and aliases.
A major problem with the current system is airline rather than government employees are responsible for initially screening travelers at check-in, said Kathleen Kraninger, DHS’ director of screening coordination, at a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee. Under Secure Flight, TSA would take over the entire airport screening process.
Furthermore, although TSA issues the no-fly list to all airlines, differences in their technologies and systems mean that even if a passenger is cleared by one airline, he or she could be flagged by another, Kraninger testified.
She added that she is confident Secure Flight addresses the privacy concerns that grounded the agency’s previous edition in February 2006 after the Government Accountability Office and privacy groups criticized the program for violating privacy laws.
DHS components and other federal agencies receive different watch lists from TSC depending on their screening needs. If a traveler’s name is believed to match a name on the Terrorist Watch List, the traveler is further screened.
The watch lists are used to check for name matches to the records on the Terrorist Watch List and if an agency suspects that there is a match the Terrorist Screening Center is contacted.
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