80,000 on TSA's 'cleared' fliers list
WASHINGTON -- A government list of "cleared" fliers, developed to cut airport hassles for people whose names are confused with suspects on the terrorist watch list, has grown to 80,000 names, records show.
The additions to the Transportation Security Administration's "cleared list" reflect an influx of requests from people asking to be removed from the watch list. The watch list database has expanded 32% since 2007, to more than 1 million entries. The cleared list has grown because about 99% of the fliers seeking to be removed from the watch list were never on it, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the TSA.
Most believed they were on the watch list after encountering screening problems at airports, often because they were mistaken for someone on the watch list, says Jim Kennedy, who heads the program that handles requests to get off the watch list.
"We do have times when the individual who's standing in front of us is a very close match with a person who is on the watch list," Kennedy says. The cleared list allows airline personnel and TSA officers to know that "this individual with this government-issued ID is not the individual we're looking for."
Legislation in Congress would combine the TSA's cleared list with similar lists maintained by other agencies, such as Customs and Border Protection, creating a single, "comprehensive cleared list" for use across the government. The measure, which has passed the House of Representatives, would require that the new list be shared with all federal agencies that use the terrorist watch list.
"This would assure that individuals that go through the redress process are not stopped as potential terrorists by other federal agencies," Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, said in a House speech.
The growth of the cleared list shows the need to change the watch-list process, says Kareem Shora, head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "It is great to have the redress (system) and the cleared list, but these are baby steps. They're not catching to the giant leaps in the size of the watch list." He and other critics want stricter standards for deciding who goes on the watch list. The list is based on "nominations" from intelligence and security agencies, such as the CIA and FBI, which use a "reasonable suspicion" standard to decide whether a person's suspected links to terrorism are strong enough to put him in the database.
