Secure Flight Improves Safety And Passenger Delays
November 25, 2009 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Homeland Security News
The Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Secure Flight is a behind-the-scenes watch list matching program designed to keep suspected or known terrorists off flights into or out of U.S. airports. This important layer of security is being phased in with airlines nationwide. Many airlines are fully participating in the program today, and more are coming on board each week. It will be fully implemented for all domestic flights early next year.
Initially, the Secure Flight program was part of a larger debate about how to identify terrorists consistently while maintaining the privacy of fliers in the post-9/11 world. Once watch list matching was determined to be the correct mechanism, TSA designed the program with privacy and security embedded into its foundation. Secure Flight now uses advanced watch list matching technology and has taken the time to get it right.
For nine out of 10 program areas, the Government Accountability Office recently stated: “TSA has demonstrated that it completed all key activities related to the condition in accordance with applicable federal guidelines and related best practices, which should reduce the risk of the program experiencing cost, schedule, or performance shortfalls.”
When booking air travel, passengers will be prompted to provide their name as it appears on the government-issued ID they plan to use when traveling, as well as their date of birth and gender.
By matching all of this data against watch lists, Secure Flight keeps known or suspected terrorists from flying while reducing the hassle for people who had previously been inconvenienced because their name was similar to someone who is actually on a watch list. By supplying this information, more than 99% of passengers will be cleared. Aside from providing this additional reservation information, passengers’ experience under Secure Flight will be unchanged.
Protecting the transportation network in a post-9/11 world requires utilizing intelligence in developing sound security practices, protecting privacy and forging strong partnerships with industry. Secure Flight employs all of these elements to keep the flying public safe.
via Opposing view: Program keeps fliers safe – Opinion – USATODAY.com.
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As technology advances on a daily basis we need to understand that detection technology is there to detect suspicious objects but it can not be relied upon to find criminals or terrorists. It is primarily used to find the bomb NOT THE BOMBER. Terrorist will identify methods of concealment and methods of attack to exploit the automated use of detection technology. We must use the human factor to identify suspicious indicators and then use refutation to recognize if a threat exists, thus the AMO (Adversary Method Of Operation) of each. Proactive security by definition means we must Detect suspicion. Determine the method of operation. And the Deploy against the AMO. Once again remember, to prevent an attack we must find the BOMBER then the BOMB.
These precautions and protocols should be implemented without worrying about “political correctness” which seems to have taken a back seat to our safety. If it looks like a pig, it walks like a pig, it eats like a pig, and it stinks like a pig…..it’s probably a pig. In addition, profiling is a great tool in L.E. and whether or not the public likes it…IT WORKS. Profiling is just another “tool” in the toolbox of L.E. Trust me, if we keep up our use of political correctness…it will kill us.