TSA criticized for delay in new passenger-screening program

The government's long-delayed kickoff of a program to improve background checks of airline passengers is "at risk of failure" and faces an uncertain future, congressional investigators said Thursday.
A report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress' investigative arm, criticized post-9/11 efforts to implement the computerized program, which aims to check domestic airline passengers' names against terrorist watch lists and other databases.

Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley told a Capitol Hill hearing that his agency is doing its own internal review of the program, called Secure Flight. He said he didn't want to rush development of the TSA program. "This is the time to ensure that Secure Flight's security, operational and privacy foundation is solid," Hawley told the Senate Commerce Committee. "My priority is that we do it right, not just that we do it quickly," he said.

Senators expressed frustration that the TSA has spent nearly three years and $144 million trying to improve on the current system, which has been criticized for mistakenly singling out innocent travelers as suspected terrorists. The agency is seeking an additional $40 million next year for Secure Flight. "Do something," Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., told Hawley. "Quit fumbling around with it."

A law enacted in December 2004 requires the TSA to take over background checks currently done by airlines. The TSA would check passengers' names against comprehensive terrorist databases instead of the incomplete, declassified watch lists given to airlines. Travelers making plane reservations would be asked for their full names and birth dates to help verify identities. The agency had hoped to start Secure Flight last April.

The new GAO report says the TSA "has not yet produced an updated schedule" of when Secure Flight will begin. The report criticized TSA for not following its own plans to develop Secure Flight. That resulted in "ad hoc" and "out of sequence" planning that's left it unclear when the program will begin, how much it will cost and how it will help security, the GAO says. "Without clarification," the report says, "the program is at risk of failure."

Investigators also warned that the TSA hasn't taken adequate steps to protect "sensitive information" being gathered for Secure Flight from hackers. Previous audits have criticized the TSA for mishandling passenger data. A probe in 2004 found that the TSA improperly stored 100 million commercial data records containing personal information on passengers after the agency said no data storage would occur. Hawley, the TSA chief, said Secure Flight would "be built from a strong privacy foundation as a starting point as opposed to building it and then adding privacy." He called the GAO report "fair criticism" and said his agency's own internal review found many similar problems, which were being corrected.

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