Intellectual Property Law

House Approves Whitelist of People Who Aren't Terrorists

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

The House overwhelmingly adopted legislation this week mandating the creation of a new kind of terrorist watchlist: a database of people who aren't terrorists, but are routinely flagged at airports anyway.

The U.S. government maintains a list of about a million names of suspected terrorists that is crosschecked with passenger names ahead of airline boarding. The list has been dogged for years by sloppy name matches that have ensnared innocent travelers, children, prominent politicians and government officials, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' secretary of education and all men named David Nelson.

Under the new plan, approved late Tuesday 413-3, innocent victims of the terrorist watchlist must prove to the Department of Homeland Security, through an undetermined appeals process, that they are not terrorists. They would then get their names put on what the legislation calls the "Comprehensive Cleared List."

The legislation is another attempt to assist wrongly flagged passengers and would supersede the troubled DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, which has been criticized for being slow or unresponsive to flier complaints.

The FAST Redress Act, if approved by the Senate, requires the government to report within 240 days on its progress in implementing the new list.

See Also:

• U.S. Terror Watch List Surpasses 900000 Names, ACLU Estimates ...
• Middle School Kids Threatened With Terrorist Watchlist
• Court: Government Must Reveal Watchlist Status to Constantly ...
• Former DoJ Official Caught on Terror Watchlist
• Terrorist Watchlist Database Balloons
• Questioning Debunking the 'Professor On Watchlist for Free Speech ...
• Reporter Visits Terror Watchlist Center, Prevented From Seeing ...
• Unified (But Uncomprehensive) Watchlist Redress System Announced ...

Full post as published by Threat Level on February 04, 2009 (boomark / email).