TSA official: Watch list exemption program ready soon

Homeland Security officials announced Tuesday the department is ready to take over the job of screening airline passengers against terrorist watch lists, marking a major milestone for a controversial program that has been besieged by technical problems, privacy concerns, missed deadlines and congressional criticism.

The Secure Flight airline passenger screening program will be ready in January, Kip Hawley, chief of the Transportation Security Administration, told the House Homeland Security Transportation Security Subcommittee during a hearing.

The department has been prohibited by Congress from implementing the program until 10 privacy and technical conditions are met.

Hawley said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has certified that the 10 conditions have been satisfied.

Two obstacles remain: the Government Accountability Office must certify that the 10 conditions are met, and a final rule for Secure Flight must be approved by the administration. Hawley said he expects the final rule to be approved by November.

Cathleen Berrick, GAO's director of homeland security and justice issues, told the subcommittee that GAO will complete its review of Secure Flight by Dec. 10.

Democrats and Republicans want to see the Secure Flight program implemented -- as long as it works properly and has sufficient privacy and civil liberties safeguards.

Under the program, the government will assume the responsibility for screening airline passengers against the government's no-fly and selectee lists, which are subsets of the larger terrorist watch list. Currently, airlines check passenger names against the lists.

Secure Flight is expected to significantly reduce the number of people who are denied the ability to fly, or who are delayed at airports for additional security checks, because their names are similar to ones on the watch lists.

Under the proposed Secure Flight rule, passengers will be able to voluntarily give TSA additional personal information, such as their date of birth or address, to be cleared from the watch lists.

House Homeland Security Transportation Security Subcommittee Chairwoman Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said she is not convinced the Bush administration will approve the final rule quickly.

Instead, she said she plans to write legislation to expedite implementation of Secure Flight and essentially bypass the rulemaking process. "I think the rule-making is going to be too slow," Jackson Lee told CongressDaily. "Maybe our legislation will be a shot in the arm."

But implementing Secure Flight will require airlines to modify their information technology systems in order to communicate with TSA, Berrick said.

She said it could take more than a year for Secure Flight to be operational with about 80 airlines nationwide, plus additional time to have the system operational with international carriers.

Hawley said the program will cost the government about $1 billion to implement over 10 years. He said he did not have an estimate for how much the airlines will have to spend to comply with the program.

Berrick said TSA has made significant progress in building privacy protections into the program. But she said GAO is mainly concerned about verifying that TSA's cost estimates and testing efforts for the program are adequate.