No-Fly To Be Cleaned; Secure Flight Delayed

[Ian David]

The airport security watchlists that a few short years ago were so secret the government wouldn't acknowledge they even existed now being cleaned of erroneous listings, a top Homeland Security official told Congress Wednesday.

Additionally, the long-delayed, beleaguered upgrade to the current watchlist checking by airlines -- first known as CAPPS II then Secure Flight -- won't be deployed until sometime in 2008, Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley said. TSA is mandated by Congress to fix the current system. The TSA has labored to find a way to have government agents, rather than airline computer systems, compare travelers to the lists. But the logistics of connecting airline databases to the government's system combined with successive privacy scandals over the project's secret use of airline data and dreams of using private data sources to verify and rate travelers' risk has stymied the program since first announced in 2002.



The watchlists -- which include a list of persons not allowed to board a plane (No-Fly list) and a list of people who must get extra screening before being allowed on a domestic flight (selectee) have notoriously snared innocent civilians with common names like Robert Johnson and not included the names of terrorists known by intelligence agencies, which don't want airline employees to have the names for fear they will be leaked.

As of last March, the lists totaled some 119,000 names, according to 60 Minutes, which obtained a copy of the list. At that time, the head of the Terrorist Screening Center -- the entity responsible for maintaining the government's centralized watchlist from which the TSA's lists are derived said they were constantly cleaning the lists. It's really unclear then what exactly Hawley was talking about? Is TSA looking over the list, then going back to the Screening Center which then has to coordinate with originating intelligence agencies? Or is the TSA just making its own whitelist and cleaning out the junk data fed to it from the government's central watchlist?

More:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/01/nofly_to_be_cle.html

[lonestarnot]

1. Wonder what is with this timing?

[Ian David]

2. Someone at Homeland Security probably watches "Boston Legal"

See:

Boston Legal: Denny learns he is on the no-fly list. "I tried to call
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3135626


Also:

Audio: Boston Legal: No Fly List
Submitted by davidswanson on Wed, 2007-01-17 05:16. Video and Audio
Listen.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/bostonnofly.mp3

More:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/17372

[lonestarnot]

5. Boston Legal is a good one when I have time, which is almost never.

[Vidar]

7. Very possible. A good, biting episode.

[Aviation Pro]

3. Why does TSA have a picture of a model's eye....

...on its web site and how much was paid for that image?

[Ian David]

4. If you hold the picture in front of a retinal scanner, it will open any secured door.

Just starting an Urban Legend.

[TaleWgnDg]

6. cripes . . . what's this "Big Brother" . . . ?

.
http://tinyurl.com/22lezn

Does this administration have a way about it that attracts paranoid ppl? Or does this administration glean out normal folks leaving the paranoids? . . .
.