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Congress Weighs Watchlist Effectiveness |
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by Mickey McCarter
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Friday, 15 January 2010 |
DHS secretary also steps up watchlist scrutiny
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Congress continued to examine elements related to strengthening US terrorist watchlists this week in the aftermath of the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt of Northwest Airlines Flight 253.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Thursday reacted to concerns from the US public over shifting air passenger screening tactics and suggestions of a renewed threat from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which White House and intelligence officials say provided the resources for the bombing attempt.
"In view of the event of Christmas Day we must remain vigilant about the continued threat we face from al Qaeda," Napolitano said in a statement. "We are taking an additional set of aviation security precautions to protect the American people. Some of these measures include enhanced random screening, additional federal air marshals on certain routes and adding individuals of concern to our terrorist watchlist system."
Napolitano added: "We are facing a determined enemy and we appreciate the patience of all Americans and visitors to our country, and the cooperation of our international partners as well as a committed airline industry. We will continue to update and adapt our defenses as needed to ensure air travel is both safe and efficient."
Members of Congress have voiced concerns about a lack of traction due to leadership turnover for maintaining accurate terrorist watchlists for passengers who must receive secondary screening and those barred from flying altogether. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) weighed in Wednesday with a bill to extend the tenure of the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to 10 years, much like the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Wolf argued that fixing intelligence and screening failures that led to the bomb threat onboard a US-bound flight require permanent leadership that is free of political influence.
"I believe a 10-year term for the administrator of TSA will help provide the agency with the qualified, long-term and independent leadership it needs at this time," Wolf said in a statement Wednesday. "Since its creation following 9/11, TSA has had six administrators, averaging terms of just 1.5 years. This is hardly the stable and committed leadership that the agency should have, given its critical role in ensuring the safety of our citizens and aviation infrastructure. It simply does not make sense for the position to change hands with each new administration or even sooner."
Research report
Meanwhile, Congress should investigate possible policy issues related to information-sharing failures that could have stopped the alleged plot of bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Northwest Flight 253, congressional researchers suggested.
The Federation of American Scientists released to the public Thursday a report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which cited issues related to breakdowns in the distribution of information on Abdulmutallab, who has been charged with the attempted murder of nearly 300 passengers onboard the flight through the use of a weapon of mass destruction.
Key issues for consideration by Congress include whether intelligence agencies are sharing the appropriate information with the proper watchlists to stop terrorists and their supporters and whether TSA can effectively prescreen air passengers through the use of its "no fly" list.
The National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), under the director of national intelligence, created a record on Abdulmutallab in its Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) database. However, the NCTC apparently never promulgated the would-be bomber's information to the US government's consolidated Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) at the FBI.
"Therefore, he would not have been placed on watchlists used by front-line, air passenger prescreening agencies, principally DHS, TSA, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)," stated the CRS report, Terrorist Watchlist Checks and Air Passenger Prescreening.
Frontline screening agencies like TSA receive data from the TSC's TSDB, the CRS report noted. CBP currently vets information it receives from international air passenger manifests against subsets of the TSDB, but TSA is set soon to take over those responsibilities from CBP.
The failure to promulgate Abdulmutallab's name through to the selectee list, presently maintained by TSA for identification of air passengers who require secondary screening measures, and ultimately perhaps the "no fly" list, a watchlist of individuals banned from US-bound flights, prompts questions about policy issues regarding the sharing of information from broad databases like TSDB and TIDE and TSA's lists, the CRS report observed.
Delineating databases
As of August 2008, TIDE contained more than 540,000 names, representing 450,000 separate individuals due to the use of aliases and variants in the spelling of names. NCTC reported that less than 5 percent of TIDE records contain information on US citizens or legal permanent residents.
TIDE contains information on international terrorism while the FBI maintains information on domestic terrorism data. The FBI's TSC merges both sets of data into the TSDB. As of September 2008, the TSDB carried more than 400,000 individual identities with only 3 percent representing US citizens or legal permanent residents. The database actually contains more than one million records on those individuals due to aliases and spelling variations of their names, however.
"The TSC distributes TSDB-generated terrorist watchlists to frontline screening agencies that conform with the missions and legal authorities under which those agencies operate. Consequently, these watchlists (e.g., the TSA's No Fly and Automatic Selectee lists) are in some cases only subsets of the TSDB," the CRS report said.
TSA took over the screening of air passengers from commercial airlines with its Secure Flight program, which became effective Dec. 29, 2008. Testing and implementation of Secure Flight, which began in May 2009, continues today, the report said. Under Secure Flight, airlines were required to collect the full name, date of birth, gender and redress number for domestic passengers and to do the same for international passengers beginning Oct. 31, 2009.
Full implementation of Secure Flight for US domestic flights is set for early 2010 and for US-bound international flights by the end of 2010, according to TSA.
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Mickey McCarter |
| About the author: |
| eNewsletter Editor/Senior Washington Correspondent,
is a journalist with more than a decade of experience in reporting
on
military affairs and information technology.
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