US airline security screening gets an F
The US government’s computerized airline passenger screening program is inadequate, said a government report that will likely further delay a project considered a priority.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the proposed program failed to meet nine of the 10 conditions set up for Secure Flight.
“The effectiveness of Secure Flight in identifying passengers who should undergo additional security scrutiny has not yet been determined,” the report said.
The US Congress after 11 September passed a law saying the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) could spend no money to implement Secure Flight until the GAO determined it met ten conditions. They included privacy protections, accuracy of data, oversight, cost and other safeguards to project the system from misuse.
“The primary cause for the delays we’ve experienced were the result of additional steps implemented for privacy protection, public notification and solicitation of public comment,” TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield was quoted as telling the Associated Press.
Secure Flight would allow the TSA to take over the responsibility for checking passengers’ names against those on terrorist watch lists. The airlines now do that.
The program is supposed to work by transferring airline passengers’ name records to a government data base. The government computer would then spot names on the watch list and not allow them to go through additional screening.
Advocates of privacy complain the government has no recourse for passengers mistakenly put on the terrorist list who may have similar names. Secure Flights does not deal with that concern, the GAO concluded.
Report by David Wilkening
David
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