Where's 'Secure Flight?'

As a frequent air traveler who is regularly inconvenienced because my common name routinely triggers the government's terrorist watch list, I read with interest the July 17 op-ed by Leonard Boyle, director of the federal Terrorist Screening Center. I consider his column the long-awaited reply to my May 2, 2005, submission to the Transportation Security Administration in an effort to avoid the inconvenience of watch-list misidentification.

Boyle asked readers how many times they have heard this "myth": "Thousands of Americans get detained and inconvenienced daily because of watch-list errors!" Without providing evidence, he said, "They don't." I know that I do, and it is unclear how Boyle or his agency would know how many others are similarly inconvenienced.

Boyle quoted from the September 2006 Government Accountability Office report"Terrorist Watch List Screening -- Efforts to Help Reduce Adverse Effects on the Public." That report found that "misidentifications can lead to delays, intensive questioning and searches, missed flights, or denied entry at the border." It also acknowledges that the total number of misidentifications "may be substantial" and "the exact number is unknown."

It is my understanding that the watch list is provided to the airlines to administer. I very much doubt that the TSA even collects data on the number of "misidentifications" that occur and are "cleared" at the airline level, without the need to notify the agency or get further clearance from it.

When I first encountered this problem in early 2005, I knew there was a mistake or a misidentification. After all, I had twice served in the Justice Department -- as the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Michigan in the Carter administration (1977-1980) and as assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's criminal division in the Clinton administration (1998-2001). While I did not like the inconvenience, I was pleased that our government was making an effort to prevent potential terrorists from traveling in airplanes after the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001. I did and still do support this important effort to safeguard our nation from terrorist attack.

I felt certain that our government, which has put people on the moon, must have devised a watch-list program that prevents known terrorists from flying but did not cast such a broad net that it would cause problems for those who simply have the misfortune to have names similar to those of terrorists or their aliases.

Apparently, I was mistaken.

More than three years ago, I filled out and mailed the TSA's passenger identity verification form as directed, with copies of my passport, driver's license and voter registration card. I never received a response. Nevertheless, I assumed that any day my problem would be solved. Each time I check my flight information online, I try to print my boarding pass. Usually (but not always) the response is "Ineligible (At Airport Only)." As of last week, when I took my most recent flight, my "misidentification" problem had not been solved.

Boyle said that his agency constantly checks its list "to reduce misidentifications" and that it "runs quality-assurance checks on watch-list data every day." I hope the agency finds my submission soon among the thousands of requests it has no doubt received from other misidentified travelers. Boyle said that "the records of individuals who have frequent encounters with the watch list will be automatically reviewed by the Terrorist Screening Center, even if no redress complaint is submitted." But what about the problems that the center never learns about because misidentifications are resolved by the airline?

For its part, the TSA understands that misidentification of innocent American travelers is a serious problem and says that it has been working on a solution. Appendix III to the 2006 GAO report on this problem says that the TSA is "developing a program called Secure Flight" that would "allow the federal government, instead of individual airlines, to compare passenger data against the Watch Lists prior to check-in at the airport, while fully protecting privacy and civil liberties." It would appear that upon implementation of this program, the misidentification problem might largely be solved. Thousands of "misidentified" travelers like me who are caught in the watch-list dragnet, like "Charlie on the MTA," can't wait for the implementation of the TSA's Secure Flight program. I wonder if Mr. Boyle could tell us how it's coming along.

The writer is a partner in the Washington office of the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP.