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Passenger Screening Plan Grounded

September 22, 2005

Airport Security • TSA Suspends "Clear" Program After Laptop Theft • TSA's Air Cargo Plans Questioned • TSA Stops ShoeScanner In Its Tracks • New Controversy Dogs TSA Chief • TSA Worries About Terrorist 'Rehearsals' • "Registered Traveler" Expands to More Airports • Lighters, Breast Milk Get TSA's OK • JFK Airport Plot Renews Calls for Worker Screening • Future Security Could Feature Facial Photos • Bush May Veto Airport Screening Machines • Competition Comes to Registered Traveler Services • TSA Dragnet Aims to Block Potential Threats • Screening the Screeners Isn't Enough to Ensure Airport Security • Naked City Comes to Life in Phoenix Airport • TSA Adds Security Checks for Airport Employees

The government has decided its plan to screen airline passengers for would-be hijackers just won’t fly. Amid mounting criticism of the plan to use commercial data, the Wall Street Journal reports the Transportation Security Agency has scrapped its plan to use commercial databases to check airline passenger lists.

The Secure Flight program is a system in which passenger names are checked against a consolidated terrorist watch list from the Terrorist Screening Center, a U.S. multi-agency effort administered by the FBI but sponsored by the TSA.

The Secure Flight program has been controversial from the start. Privacy advocates have called it intrusive, and an encroachment on citizens’ basic rights. They say that by being able to check information on passengers’ backgrounds, screeners would have access to highly sensitive data on millions of consumers.

But the plan also has its critics within the government.

Earlier this month the Justice Department issued a report, calling Secure Flight “unfocused and unprepared to take effect. The department’s inspector general Glenn Fine said in the that the TSA has failed to coordinate properly with the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, suggesting TSA can't get the proper data it needs to bring the program online.

The Journal report says TSA has decided to launch the program without using the commercial databases, satisfying some of the privacy concerns but perhaps not addressing all the bureaucratic ones. The report says Secure Flight is expected to be cleared for take off by early next year.

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