[Infowarrior] - TSA Unveils Planned Overhaul of Airport Screening

[Richard Forno]

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Politics  :  Security   RSS
TSA Unveils Planned Overhaul of Airport Screening
By Ryan Singel Email 08.10.07 | 12:00 AM
http://www.wired.com/print/politics/security/news/2007/08/secure_flight

The federal government proposed Thursday to overhaul how airline passengers
are screened against terrorist watch lists by taking over the process from
airlines, and closing a long-known security hole that allows a person to
evade extra screening using a fake boarding pass.

The new program, known as Secure Flight, would require airlines to forward
itineraries to the government starting 72 hours before a flight. The
Transportation Security Administration would then compare the names, dates
of birth and gender against hundreds of thousands of names on the No-Fly and
Selectee watch lists, and send the results back to the airlines.

Those who match or have details similar to a name on the Selectee list will
get a boarding pass with a special code singling them out for extra
screening. Individuals who don't match will be free to print a boarding pass
at home, if the airline offers that option.

Airlines have to deny boarding to persons who match the No-Fly list.
Travelers who falsely match No-Fly entries will have to show identification
to airline personnel, who will tell TSA employees over the phone what the
person looks like to help the government decide whether the traveler and the
watch list name are the same.

The proposal is the latest version of the long-planned, and congressionally
mandated, replacement of the current watch list process, in which the
government provides the lists to each airline, which then do their own
matching.

Unlike controversial earlier proposals -- known both as CAPPS II and Secure
Flight -- the newest version will not use data from commercial data brokers,
such as ChoicePoint. Proposals to assign threat-level scores to travelers
not on a watch list and to use airports as a way to find persons with
outstanding warrants were also discarded this time around.

Privacy groups were still poring over the 137-page proposal (.pdf) Thursday,
but the Center for Democracy and Technology's policy director Jim Dempsey
gave a tentative stamp of approval.

"On initial glance, it is by far the most rational and focused description
of a passenger screening system we have seen," Dempsey said.

But Dempsey cautions that the government now needs to fix the watch lists.

"One huge unresolved issue is the reliability of the watch lists, which we
know grew dramatically over the past six years and which undeniably contain
unreliable information," said Dempsey. "Congress and the executive branch
need to now give a lot of attention to ongoing efforts to make those lists
reliable."

TSA is also proposing that each boarding pass will have a unique, scannable
mark, which could be authenticated by a TSA employee with a wireless device
at the head of the screening line. While the TSA hasn't chosen what
technologies to use for this system, the move starts to eliminate a
long-standing hole in the current system. That hole allows a watch listed
person to avoid being banned from flying or encountering extra screening by
modifying a print-at-home boarding pass.

Privacy groups had criticized the program's earlier versions for planning to
store Americans' travel records for decades. The new proposal would delete
records on travelers who don't match against the lists after seven days. For
people matched against the Selectee list, the data will be stored for seven
years, while those who match against the No-Fly list will have their travel
data stored for 99 years.

The government hopes that centralizing the process will reduce the
mismatches that have plagued the watch list system since its expansion after
the 9/11 attacks. The Department of Homeland Security says it will work off
lists that have more identifying data than the unclassified lists it
currently sends to airlines.

Passengers will be required to give their full names when making
reservations, and airlines and travel agencies will also have to ask for,
but not require, dates of birth and gender of prospective travelers.

The program won't be cheap, since it requires airlines and travel agencies
to make significant changes to their computer systems and buy extra
bandwidth to connect to the government.

Additionally, Secure Flight aims to take over the watch list screening of
international flights, which is currently done by Customs and Border Patrol.

The government estimates airlines will need to spend $125 million in the
first year, while the cost to the government over the next 10 years is
expected to be $1.3 billion to $2 billion.

Despite the cost estimates, James May, the president of the Air Transport
Association, applauded the announcement.

"If properly crafted, the programs will improve aviation security without
adding to passenger privacy concerns," May said in a written statement. "In
particular, we look forward to a unitary data-collection process that
accommodates all government demands for passenger information and leads to
the creation of a coordinated worldwide system."

After the proposal is officially published and the comment period closes,
the TSA hopes to test the program with one airline in the fall and then roll
the program out, airline by airline, in 2008. Congress told DHS, however, it
cannot start the watch list checking, until government auditors certify that
it works and protects Americans' privacy.