Secure Flight

I’d like to thank John Bowen who is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Preventive Strategies for the welcome on his blog, Hometown Security (http://hometownsecurity.blogspot.com)!

Greater Cincinnati International Airport (the ICAO is CVG) is actually located across the Ohio River in Northern Kentucky. It is, by most local news accounts, the second largest hub for Delta airlines. In theory, that should mean flyers in the Tri-State enjoy cheap or at least competitive airline fares. However, fares out of CVG are some of this highest in the nation since Delta more or less has a monopoly at the airport.

I was reminded of this while reading Secretary Chertoff’s blog this morning on Secure Flight which is designed to conduct uniform prescreening of passenger information against federal government watch lists for domestic and international flights. Currently, air carriers are responsible for checking passengers against government watch lists.

Under Secure Flight, TSA will receive information for each passenger. TSA will then determine any matches of information with government watch lists and transmit matching results back to aircraft operators. Secure Flight will match limited passenger information against government watch lists to identify known and suspected terrorists, prevent known and suspected terrorists from boarding an aircraft, facilitate legitimate passenger air travel, and protect individuals' privacy. Secure Flight will:

- Identify known and suspected terrorists;
- Prevent individuals on the No Fly List from boarding an aircraft;
- Identify individuals on the Selectee List for enhanced screening,
- Facilitate passenger air travel by providing fair, equitable and consistent matching process across all aircraft operators; and
- Protect individuals' privacy

Delta flies many non-stop overseas flights from CVG. Cincinnati does not have the high profile of say Laguardia or JFK airports in New York or Logan airport in Boston. Therefore suspected terrorists may be inclined to fly into one of the smaller airports, such as CVG, to minimize exposure to screening. Secure Flight then should be a great advancement in providing higher levels of security and safety at our airports.

I remain skeptical though based on my years of using various data bases for intelligence analysis during my years in the US Air Force. The very first bullet for Secure Flight, “identify known and suspected terrorists”, is a recipe for failure. I say that since any system is only as good as the information that is fed into it. People are not the same as military installations or equipment. Overhead reconnaissance can easily confirm or deny the presence of a new base or the movement of military equipment.

Successfully identifying a terrorist requires human intelligence. The source of this information relies on a plain old carbon based life form rather than piece of technology. He or she has to get close enough to the target to understand objectives intentions. Acting on this information prematurely could alert the target that they are being watched. Failure to do so could activate another cell that our intelligence sources have not discerned. They could attack before we could stop them.

The next goal, “prevent individuals on the No Fly List from boarding an aircraft”, is a good objective but assumes we know the individual in advance. Terrorists are studying our identification and warning networks and will try to breech them by using unknowns. Using an unknown agent to get on board the aircraft is a simple and likely way of defeating this objective.

"Identifying selectees for enhanced screening" sounds like a public relations disaster in the making. Recently authorities in Phoenix arrested a woman that had become loud and belligerent while waiting in the jet way to board her aircraft. The police arrested her and put her in a holding cell at the airport. The woman, who was an alcoholic and was traveling to a rehabilitation center, died while in the holding cell. The authorities were trying to maintain the safety of the other passengers and by their accounts followed procedures yet the woman died.

Airlines are having enough challenges with higher airfares and less in-flight service that if this objective is not implemented carefully, we could really create a crisis for our airline industry. Perhaps this is exactly what the terrorists want, economic collapse. It doesn’t have to be about smashing and airliner into a skyscraper. All it takes is for us to overreact and hurt ourselves.

“Facilitate passenger air travel by providing fair, equitable and consistent matching process across all aircraft operators” well if TSA and DHS can do this it would be one of the few times the federal government has managed to achieve a fair and equitable process across the board. The objective is very noble in its intent but damn impossible to implement. I say that because we are dealing with individuals. Individuals act uniquely at different times and under different situations. Incomplete data files could incorrectly indicate someone as a threat. Dealing with someone who is very emotional or that may be having mental health challenges requires extra care and finesse. I’ve just not seen care and finesse to be a strong suite of any federal training program but concede there has to be some attempt.

The final objective, protecting individual’s privacy, is one that Ohioans are especially skeptical. Earlier this year, a laptop was stolen from a state employee. The laptop contained over 500,000 tax records records of Ohioans including their social security numbers, home address and date of birth. To my knowledge, the laptop still has not been found. The sensitivity of the information in Secure Flight poses a temptation to those motivated by financial or political gain.

For those of us here in the Queen City, I’m not sure if Secure Flight will make us any safer but it will make our screening lines longer. Passengers already disgusted by the higher airfares at CVG will seek out other airports for their travel arrangements. These passengers will start to base other travel and vacation activities in those locations leading to a potential economic downturn here.