Friendlier skies?

Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

After recounting horror stories related by several air travelers who had been mistakenly placed on a terrorism watch list, we wrote in September that the federal government should make it a priority to reduce the frequency of these mistakes.

It is obvious to us and nearly everyone that the current system is flawed. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and former South African President Nelson Mandela have been among the well-known people at risk of being taken aside and interrogated as they were about to board flights.

Locally, former Clark County School District Superintendent Carlos Garcia ran into the same problem three years ago, and encountered much difficulty in trying to get his true identity acknowledged by the airlines. Thousands of other innocent people, including, incredibly, infants, are regularly being flagged.

Fortunately the government did recognize the need for a better system. On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced changes that will take place early next year for domestic flights and later next year for international flights.

The rule changes had been delayed for some time out of privacy concerns, as they require passengers to give their full name, gender and date of birth when booking flights. Chertoff said those concerns were addressed through encryption of the names and, for most passengers, destruction of their reservation records after seven days.

More complete reservation information will eliminate a lot of the “false positives” that have infuriated so many passengers, Chertoff said.

Also, when the new rules fully kick in, the Transportation Security Administration will take over the responsibility for checking reservations against security lists. Currently, airlines take on this responsibility and their inconsistent, and sometimes inefficient, methods are part of the problem, Chertoff said.

Additionally under the new rules, there will be a quicker and more efficient way for innocent travelers to clear their names if a mistake is made.

The rule changes make sense. If problems still persist, however, we hope it won’t take several more years for additional refinements to be made.