TSA: Tests Going Well for Secure Flight

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON - The government has begun testing a computerized screening system that compares airline passengers' names with those on terrorist watch lists, a Transportation Security Administration official said Thursday.
Called "Secure Flight," it's meant to replace a plan that never got to the testing stage because of criticism that it gave the government access to too much personal information.
...
The testing has not turned up any suspected terrorists. Oberman said the agency expects to wrap up the first phase of testing in a month.
"The technology is working, doing exactly what we wanted it to do," he said.

The TSA is testing data on passengers who flew domestic flights on U.S. airlines in June. The airlines, concerned about upsetting passengers, had refused to turn over the information, but the TSA issued a security directive ordering them to do so.
...
Under Secure Flight, the airlines would electronically transmit to the government passenger names as well as other identifying information. The government would then match that information with the terrorist watch lists; names on those lists are supposed to include biographical information.

The passenger information that's being tested is known as passenger name records, or PNR. It can include credit card numbers, travel itineraries, addresses, telephone numbers and meal requests.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050106/ap_on_go_ot/passenger_screening

[RC]

1. If we could get rid of the money grubbing, paranoid criminals

running the government, maybe we could get some common sense going on boarding planes. And be safer also.

[papau]

2. Does being on DU mean you're stopped by Airlines like Nancy McLaughlin?

Does being on DU mean you're stopped by Airlines like Nancy McLaughlin?
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/01/06/d1.cr.watchlists.0106.html

January 6, 2005

Air Travel: Who's Keeping an Eye on Her?

By Tim Christie The Register-Guard


Nancy McLaughlin says she's being watched. Every time she flies, the 51-year-old Creswell grandmother gets pulled aside, searched and patted down ``thoroughly'' - too thoroughly, she says - by Transportation Security Administration agents.

The last straw came when she took her 9-year-old grandson to Eugene Airport on Sunday so he could fly back alone to his home in Reno, Nev. Airport screeners were going to search McLaughlin, until they realized she wasn't flying. So they searched her grandson instead.

They had him take off his shoes, his belt, his coat. They searched his backpack and his lunch box. They looked inside his sandwich, McLaughlin said.

Nancy McLaughlin, 51, says she is always singled out of line at the airport for especially thorough searches. When she took her grandson to the airport, he was searched, too.<snip>

McLaughlin said she's not shy about writing to the government and members of Congress, and she's a member of the "Democratic Underground," a Web site dedicated to political commentary and satire. And that may explain why she could have ended up on the list.

McLaughlin said she doesn't pose a security threat, so it's possible this is a case of mistaken identity - that there's another Nancy McLaughlin out there who is on the government's list. If so, she's in good company. Carlos Garcia, superintendent of the Clark County School District in Las Vegas and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., are among the travelers who have found themselves pulled aside and patted down repeatedly when they fly.

McLaughlin, a secretary at the Springfield Utility Board, was still fuming days after her grandson, Quentin Ramirez, was searched at the Eugene Airport. Quentin, she said, was "shocked and afraid."

"Why on God's earth are they searching kids?" she said.

[amazona]

4. random means random

"Why on God's earth are they searching kids?" she said.

Dope smugglers aren't above using a baby diaper or a child's luggage to bring back drugs, so why wouldn't terrorists do the same.

As a frequent flyer, I expect random to mean random, not that women, children, babies, the elderly, and the disabled will be given a free pass -- because terrorists will exploit weaknesses just as drug importers do.

She has a valid complaint -- being on the no-fly list and not being able to have a simple way to clear her name -- and then she drags in unreasonable complaints -- such as not wanting kids searched. The TSA staff at the airport has a list that suggests to them that she might be a terrorist, and she is putting a known associate, child or no child, on an airplane she isn't flying herself. The proper thing to do is to search the person she is putting on the plane. It would have been negligent NOT to search the child in the situation she describes, based on the limited information available to the TSA staff on the ground.

Yes, we need to get rid of these un-American "no fly" lists. If someone is a terrorist, arrest them and put them on trial. Don't let them just drift about the country and only bother to pick them up when they show up at the airport.

But I don't see how anyone can make a reasonable argument that you should get rid of all random screening. Might as well put an instruction booklet in terrorist hands. Ask Israel if terrorists have a problem using women and children, hmmm, don't think so.

I understand, it does get frustrating. I was subject to multiple searches and questions on a trip last year. It was annoying, and I was tired. But I'd rather the occasional inconvenience of being questioned and searched than the permanent inconvenience of being dead.

[alarimer]

5. I agree it should be random too

But this does not seem random to search the same person over and over again. I have had extra screening because I was flying one-way but not every time I fly one-way, strangely enough. Not to sound PC but non-random screening (picking out people who "look" Muslim or Iranian or whatever" is frankly unconstitutional. I would rather they search everyone rather than singling anyone out but I suppose that is too time-consuming.

[amazona]

3. if we were cleared in June...

...does this mean we can expect less hassles in future flights since the gov't has cleared us?

[RC]

6. Only if you are a monied white repug.