[privacy] When Your Name Is Mud at the Airport

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120156976800424001.html?mod=todays_us_person
al_journal
 

When Your Name Is Mud at the Airport

System to Help Innocent Fliers 
Get Off Terrorist Watch Lists 
Hasn't Lived Up to Promise
January 29, 2008; Page D1

A government program set up to remove innocent people from terrorism no-fly
and watch lists has been ineffective and riddled with problems, travelers
and congressional leaders say.

The Department of Homeland Security's Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, or
TRIP, was started almost a year ago to clear people routinely subjected to
extra airport-security screening and even detention simply because their
names were confused with those on the government's voluminous terrorism
watch lists. The lists now contain more than 700,000 records and include
many names as common as John Thompson and James Wilson.

But travelers say TRIP has done little to ease their security hassles. They
complain that government officials have been unresponsive and offer little
information even when they do answer inquiries. And travelers who have been
told they have been placed on a "cleared" list find themselves still
subjected to added security procedures, unable to pre-print boarding passes
for airline flights or use kiosks at airports, for example. Then, after
waiting in line to check in, they find themselves trapped in a Catch-22 of
long waits while supervisors probe their identity and status on the
"cleared" list -- just to avoid the delay of being selected for additional
screening at checkpoints.

"The 'redress' program is completely useless. I still have the same
problems," says James Wilson, a department chairman at a community college
in Oregon who was "cleared" through TRIP this past summer but has been
stopped by airline and airport officials on every flight since.

TRIP was launched in February 2007 after years of complaints from multitudes
of travelers who inexplicably turned up on terrorism watch lists and were
regularly subjected to Transportation Security Administration secondary
screening at airports and sometimes pulled aside for questioning. Famously,
even Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.) was tagged for extra screening, along
with young children, military veterans with security clearances and many
others. Even more frustrating for many, removing their names from terrorism
lists seemed impossible.

The government hailed TRIP as a convenient remedy, but the program soon ran
into trouble. A graduate student discovered that the TRIP Web site that
collects personal information wasn't secure and exposed applicants to
possible identity theft. An investigation by the House Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform found that Homeland Security awarded the
TRIP Web site contract without competition, and the TSA official in charge
of it was a former employee of the company that got the contract. In
addition, the House Committee on Homeland Security says TRIP was inoperative
for two months last year.

...

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