NYT: Government to Take Over Watch-List Screening (airline passengers)

[DeepModem Mom]

AIRLINES
Government to Take Over Watch-List Screening
By RACHEL L. SWARNS

Published: August 17, 2004


WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 - Domestic security officials said Monday that they planned to begin screening airline passengers against a list of potential terror suspects, taking over a responsibility now carried out by the airlines.

Advocates for tougher screening requirements and civil libertarians have criticized the current system, under which airline employees check passenger names against government watch lists to ensure that terror suspects do not board airplanes and that law enforcement officials are promptly notified of potential security risks.

The system has been described as ineffective because the government does not provide the airlines with a comprehensive set of watch lists, in part because some of that information is classified. Civil libertarians also cite instances in which airlines have mistakenly denied passengers the right to fly.

Under the new system, government officials said, the airlines will provide the Department of Homeland Security with passenger lists and government officials will check those names against more expansive watch lists. Department officials declined to say when it would assume this responsibility, but said the shift would create a more thorough screening of passengers than is now possible....

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Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union, who sued the government earlier this year on behalf of passengers who said they were wrongly placed on no-fly lists, cautiously welcomed the change.

Catherine Kim, a lawyer with the civil liberties group, said the decision reflected an acknowledgement of the problems in the current system....(and) said she hoped the government would bring more uniformity to the process and provide a centralized mechanism for passengers mistakenly identified as terror suspects to remove their names from watch lists....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/17/politics/17nofly.html

[ixion]

1. oh yeah... the gov't has such a great track record with these things...and

why is everyone so ready to start turning over passenger lists to the brownshirts? ACLU lawyers 'welcoming' this? Give me a break.

More facism, more unconstitiutional invasions of privacy, that's all this is.

:grr: