Battle escalates over fliers' personal data

USA Today
Aug. 24, 2005

The Homeland Security Department is making another push to get personal data on airline passengers in an effort to keep terrorists off flights.

The lobbying effort comes months after the House and Senate, concerned about invading privacy, gave preliminary approval to a measure that would ban the department from tapping into credit reports, court files, shopping histories and other personal information for one year.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wants Congress to scrap the pending ban so the government can make passenger information "more complete and accurate" when it compares names with those of suspected terrorists, according to department spokesman Russ Knocke.

USA TODAY
Chertoff: Checks would aid security.

Chertoff is likely to face a tough battle in Congress. The ban has the support of key members of both political parties, including Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a leading privacy rights advocate in Congress, said Monday that "it would be a mistake" to remove the ban. "Our privacy rights need more watchdogs, not fewer," Leahy said. "Data banks offer powerful tools for security screening, but they also raise privacy dangers."

Passenger names are now checked by airlines against a government no-fly list, which excludes classified information about terrorists. Since early 2003, Homeland Security officials have sought to take over the process and add in-depth passenger background checks.

The idea has sparked outrage from privacy advocates such as former Republican congressman Bob Barr, who labels it a government intrusion into "very personal data." Concerns over privacy last year helped kill a similar plan to check passenger backgrounds.

The Homeland Security Department says detailed background checks would flag people who book flights using fake identities - and reduce the millions of instances when innocent people receive extra airport screening because their names closely resemble those of terrorism suspects.

The debate is likely to intensify next month when Congress considers final approval of the one-year ban. The ban would stop the Transportation Security Administration from continuing tests conducted this year to see whether background checks using commercial databases improve comparisons of passenger names to watch lists.

If you stop testing the system now, you stop short of having a full body of work," says
TSA Assistant Administrator Justin Oberman.

U.S. Congress
Sabo: Stop testing proposed system.

Rep. Martin Olav Sabo, D-Minn., wants the testing stopped. "The Department of Homeland Security hasn't shown that it's able to safely handle data from commercial sources so far," Sabo said.

A congressional probe found in July that the TSA improperly stored 100 million commercial data records containing personal information on passengers after the agency said no data storage would occur.