February theme: Aviation securityGetting one's name off no-fly watch list a major hassle
The U.S. lists 28 organizations as terrorist organizations; their total membership is estimated to be around 180,000 (of about 120,000 are members of the recently added Iranian Revolutionary Guard); yet, the U.S. terrorism no-fly watch list now contains more than 700,000 names — and it is growing by thousands every month; if your name got on the list by mistake, it is not easy to have it removed
It appears that there are but a few things more difficult than getting one’s name off the U.S. government’s terrorism no-fly watch list. Wall Street Journal’s Scott McCartney writes that aA government program set up specifically to remove innocent people from such watch lists has been ineffective and riddled with problems, travelers and congressional leaders say. DHS’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 merely because their names were confused with those on the government’s voluminous — and rapidly growing — terrorism watch lists. The lists now contain more than 700,000 records and include many names as common as John Thompson and James Wilson. Travelers and advocacy groups 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. Travelers who have been told they have been placed on a “cleared” list find themselves still subjected to added security procedures, unable to preprint 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 ecurity supervisors probe their identity and status on the “cleared” list to make sure that they truly beling on the list — just to avoid the delay of being selected for additional screening at checkpoints.
TRIP was launched in February 2007 after years of complaints from many travelers who inexplicably turned up on terrorism watch lists and were regularly subjected to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) secondary screening at airports and sometimes pulled aside for questioning. Famously, even Senator Edward Kennedy (D.-Massachusetts) was tagged for extra screening, along with toddlers (the youngest of which was nine-months old) and 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 which collects personal information was not secure and exposed applicants to identity theft. An investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that DHS awarded the TRIP Web site contract without competition, and the TSA official in charge of it was a former employee of
