TSA no-fly list under scrutiny for over-enrollment

It is a good thing that blues singer Robert Johnson died in 1938, for if he was alive today he would surely find it difficult to fly — and not just because he is believed to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical talents. His is one of thousands of innapropriately listed names on the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) no-fly list, alongside names such as Evo Morales (the president of Bolivia) and Edward Kennedy. According to the Government Accountability Office, more than 30,000 passengers have asked TSA to delist them, yet the procedures for doing so are marred by bureacratic confusion and ineptitude.

One major problem is that, although all such requests must be directed to the Terrorist Screening Center, referring agencies such as Customs and Border Protection do not use standardized methods in doing so. The Department of Justice is currently working on the problem on TSA’s behalf, and a draft interagency agreement is expected shortly that will “ensure that opportunities for redress are formally documented and that agency responsibilities are clear, with designated officials specifically accountable for supporting the continued success of watch-list-related redress.” This sounds like a good start, but we sure are glad our names are not Johnson or Smith.

One other note of interest from the GAO report: “As a future enhancement, the Terrorist Screening Center’s strategy is to develop the capability to link name-based watch list searches to relevant biometric systems maintained by other agencies, although this capability may be more useful for confirming positive matches than for reducing the incidence of misidentifications.” An investment opportunity, perhaps?

-read more in Leslie Miller’s AP report ;for the GAO report, see agency Web site