Editorial: No-fly falls behind

Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007 | 7:01 a.m.

Atop Homeland Security official says the agency is five years behind in creating a database for checking airline passengers' names against terrorist watch lists.

According to a story by The New York Times on Wednesday, Kip Hawley, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, says the program, called Secure Flight, is not expected to be completed until 2010 - almost a decade after the 2001 terrorist attacks made improving the passenger check system a top priority.

Under the existing system, airlines check passengers' names against terrorist watch lists. But the computer software and watch lists that airlines use are not always up-to-date, which has resulted in many passengers erroneously being identified as terrorists - even a 4-year-old child has been detained previously.

The TSA, which is part of the Homeland Security Department, was charged with designing a system in which the federal government will maintain the database and oversee passenger name checks. Four years and $140 million later, however, federal officials say it will take three more years and another $80 million to launch Secure Flight.

The main reason for the delay, officials told the Times, is that civil libertarians raised concerns that previous versions of Secure Flight did not protect passengers' privacy. Of particular concern was a version that called for buying access to commercial repositories of personal data and sifting through the data to find links - such as a common address or phone number - between airline passengers and known terrorists, the Times reports.

The new Secure Flight system won't use commercial data. It simply will check to see whether a passenger is on the federal "no-fly" list or a so-called "selectee list" that requires more intensive screening.

Homeland Security officials openly acknowledged that this most recent version of Secure Flight is simpler and is likely to be more accurate than previous versions. Yet they still felt obligated to blame those who wanted to protect passengers' privacy rights and improve accuracy in the process.

Privacy advocates raised their concerns because they thought that the government could - and should - do better. And, despite Homeland Security officials' whining, it seems they are capable of creating a better system.