US terror watchlist 80,000 names long
Thu Dec 8,10:59 AM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051208/pl_afp/usswedenattackstravel

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A watchlist of possible terror
suspects distributed by the US government to airlines
for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a
Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air
industry sources.

The classified list, which carried just 16 names
before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and
Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to
40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska
Dagbladet reported.

Airlines must check each passenger flying to a US
destination against the list, and contact the US
Department of
Homeland Security for further investigation if there
is a matching name.

The list contains a strict "no fly" section, which
requires airline staff to contact police, and a
"selectee" section, which requires passengers to
undergo further security checks.

Some 2,000 passengers checking in at Stockholm's
Arlanda airport have had to be cleared with the US
authorities because of name matches on the "selectee"
list this year, although none was prevented from
boarding, Svenska Dagbladet said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tens of thousands mistakenly matched to terrorist
watch lists
By Anne Broache, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: December 6, 2005, 3:41 PM PT

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5984673.html

WASHINGTON--About 30,000 airline passengers have
discovered since last November that their names were
mistakenly matched with those appearing on federal
watch lists, a transportation security official said
Tuesday.

Jim Kennedy, director of the Transportation Security
Administration's redress office, revealed the errors
at a quarterly meeting convened here by the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and
Integrity Advisory Committee.

Kennedy said that travelers have had to ask the TSA to
clear their identities from watch lists by submitting
a "Passenger Identity Verification Form" and three
notarized copies of identification documents. On
average, he said, it takes officials 45 to 60 days to
evaluate the request and make any necessary changes.

Travelers have been instructed to file the forms only
after experiencing "repeated" travel delays, he said,
because additional screening can occur for multiple
reasons, including fitting a certain profile, flying
on a one-way ticket or being selected randomly by a
computer.

Of the 30,000 people who said they were mistakenly
matched to names on the list, none ever had been kept
from boarding an airplane, Kennedy said. Their names
appeared only on a "selectee list," where members are
singled out for additional screening. Names on the
"no-fly" list, however, are unilaterally barred from
flying. The office said it hasn't been informed of any
cases where people have disputed matches with names on
the no-fly list.

After submitting their notarized forms and
identifications, and waiting for evaluations, the vast
majority of the people mistakenly matched to names on
the watch list have now been added to a "clearance"
list. That doesn't mean their names are erased from
the watch list. In fact, travelers who go through the
paperwork are told, Kennedy said, that "it will not
quote 'remove' you from the list because the person
we're still looking for is out there."

Instead, their names are put on the separate clearance
list, which means they typically can't check in for
flights at an unmanned kiosk and must approach the
ticket counter to explain their situation and have an
airline employee match their name to the clearance
list.

A total of about 60 applicants had to be denied, as
security officials couldn't determine that the
applicants weren't actually the same as those named on
the list, Kennedy said.

According to government statistics, about 1.8 million
people travel on 30,000 separate commercial flights
through the nation's airports every day. It is unclear
how many names are on the TSA's selectee and no-fly
watch lists.

Skepticism continues to swirl around a proposed
passenger screening program known as Secure Flight,
which government auditors and watchdog groups have
criticized for failing to lay out clear goals or
address privacy and data security concerns. New
York-based lawyer Lisa Sotto, the acting committee
chairman, called it "the most interesting topic to
this group and the one that we're most concerned
about."

Kennedy's remarks came after the advisory committee
unanimously adopted a list of five broad
recommendations for the Secure Flight program, which
include: making the program more transparent to the
public and airlines, which receive the daily watch
lists; keeping the goals of the program narrowly
focused; collecting minimal data; providing proactive,
efficient ways for people to dispute wrongful delays
or prohibitions from boarding flights; and regular
audits by the Homeland Security Privacy Office.

Part of the reason government officials are clamoring
for Secure Flight is that it is "designed to minimize
the number of instances where people are misidentified
as potential terrorist threats," Kennedy said, though
he didn't elaborate on the reasons for that claim.

The recommendations to Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff are nonbinding. Chertoff was
scheduled to speak to the committee on Tuesday but
canceled at the last minute.

CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh contributed to this
report.