Flight Insecurity

Jeff Milchen

October 25, 2004

As Iraq and the dead-heat election dominate the headlines, Washington is quietly moving forward on an airline security program to check passengers’ backgrounds. This is the latest bad policy conceived in the name of homeland security by the Transportation Security Administration, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security. The director of Reclaim Democracy, Jeff Milchen previously wrote for TomPaine.com about a program called Registered Traveler, which was implemented last summer. Together, Milchen argues, the Secure Flight and Registered Traveler programs are intended to replace, and considerably expand, the infringements on travelers' freedoms.

Milchen directs ReclaimDemocracy.org, a non-profit organization working to restore citizen authority over corporations and defend constitutional rights.

In July, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced to reporters that the government’s latest attempt to launch an airline security program based on passenger background checks—the Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System II (CAPPS II)—was being terminated.  Asked whether the program truly was dead, Ridge jokingly gestured as if driving a stake through a vampire’s heart while affirming, "Yes."

Well, get out your garlic and cross. The Transportation Security Administration’s  “new” Secure Flight program would employ most of the elements of CAPPS II that generated heated opposition from privacy watchdogs—but repackaged with a slicker name while citizens' attention is distracted by the imminent elections. The concept—gathering and computer analyzing information about every traveler in an attempt to identify “dangerous” people—is unchanged from CAPPS II. The same fundamental problem also remains: attempting to sort citizens based on their alleged potential for violence merely distracts from creating sound security infrastructure.

Recall that the 9/11 Commission confirmed, "All five of the American Airlines Flight 77 hijackers (departing from Washington, D.C.) were selected for security scrutiny" by the original CAPPS program. Luggage checked by the killers was “scrutinized” before they boarded their flight uneventfully.

The trouble was, while millions of dollars were invested in computer analysis to identify “risky” passengers, you could walk right into the cockpit on almost any U.S. airliner. Bush administration officials keep pushing for more costly high-tech fixes and sacrifices of personal privacy, but the terror of 9/11 could have been prevented by requiring locked and secure cockpit doors on commercial flights.

Of course, terrorists may have found other aviation security weaknesses to exploit, but as we continue seeking improvements in safety, we must create safe systems, not squander resources trying to separate good guys from bad guys. Here’s the key: because it’s impossible to identify every potential terrorist, an effective airline security system must keep us safe whether a passenger is your grandmother or Osama bin Laden himself.

Instead, the TSA is moving forward with a test run for Secure Flight, which includes ordering airlines to hand over Passenger Name Records this month on every person who took a commercial flight within the United States during June. The records typically include your name, all flight details, seat location, travel agent and form of payment. Depending on your airline and booking agency, those records may also include your credit card numbers, travel companions, details on hotel stays and car rentals, address, telephone number and even meal requests.

Passengers’ names will be checked against watch lists created by the Terrorist Screening Center, administered by the FBI. These lists identify travelers to receive special screening or detention based on their suspected security threat or propensity to record annoyingly overplayed pop songs like “Peace Train.”

When Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) was barred from staying in the United States last month, it presumably was under the auspices of the still-operating CAPPS I, but the TSA refuses to confirm exactly why he was selected. Since the FBI has acknowledged that at least 120,000 names are on their suspect list, innocent people will be flagged every day, delaying their travel or even denying them a seat—including thousands who merely have the same or similar name to someone on the “watch list.”

So what’s your recourse if you’re wrongly tagged? Incredibly, the TSA is exempting itself from federal law that would guarantee our right to know why if our name appears on a watch list. And after secretly obtaining millions of passenger records from airlines and deceiving the public about it, TSA officials say we should trust them to create an appeal process later.

Meanwhile, the Bush Justice Department is ever more secretive about the issue. In September, the Department refused in federal court to either confirm or deny the existence of a law requiring that airline passengers show identification upon check-in. So the government has airlines enforcing a law that may or may not exist—a bit like the Fourth Amendment under John Ashcroft’s reign as attorney general.

Secure Flight seems to fit an ongoing marketing campaign by the Bush administration to convince us that we must surrender freedom or privacy to be safe. Fortunately, citizens are growing more skeptical as they see repeated civil liberties abuses since 9/11. “Secure Flight” is drawing flak both from civil liberties watchdogs and safety advocates who recognize the program squanders resources that could truly enhance our safety if spent elsewhere.

Those who study security realize that identifying a would-be terrorist is extraordinarily difficult—"much harder than simply finding needles in a haystack," as one Homeland Security official said. It's relatively simple, however, to identify and secure many vulnerable targets that terrorists could strike and cause catastrophic damage. Our defense spending should be employed identifying and shoring up those weak points, not hunting for needles. 

Citizens wishing to influence the launch of “Secure Flight” can do so by filing comments by the close of business (Eastern time) on Monday, October 25. More information is available from the Practical Nomad and an automated comment form is provided by UnsecureFlight.com .