Terrorist watch lists have become a lot shorter than they have been in the past. Micheal Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security stated that there were only 2,500 people currently on the "no fly" list. From that list of 2,500 people, 10% of those people are citizens of the United States. The People that are on this list are not allowed to board any aircraft because intelligence believe that they are a threat.
Less than 16,000 people are put on the "selectees" list. From that list, the majority of them are not americans. These people are alowed to fly but they recieve extra securty because they still pose a threat but it is isnt as big as a threat that the people on the "no fly" list pose.
Since September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that occured on the World Trade Centers and Pentagon there has been more than 1 million names added to the lists. The Screaning base the FBI uses to screen terrorsts, in Augest, the lists were said to have about 400,000 people on.
Since then the goverment has being trying to get a program to address the problem and on Wednesday the program they came up with was announced. This program's main issue was to secure the flight for travelers. In order to do so they have to provide their date of birth, gender, and full name when they make reservations for an airline. They will then transfer all this information to Transportation Security Administraion, and then be compared to the watch lists. The extra information that you will now have to provide, The Department of Homeland Security feels that they will reduce the number of people that are on the watch list for false reasons.
Individual airlines currently compare names ont he tickets with the "no fly" and "selectee" lists but if is felt by the Transportation Security Information that their perfomances havent been even. They also feel that having the goverment match the information will improve security and also increase efficiency. It also will help weed out the names that are on the list for false reasons, and the people that are on the list for false reasons maybe be denied a boarding pass for the plane or they could be searched agressively at the airports.
I feel that this new plan is a good idea. By providing extra information it would make finding and identifying "terrorists" that are on the watch list easier to identify. Many people have the same names, because expecially in the US there are some very common last names, along with first names. When your have to provide a full name, and date of birth may help correctly identify certian suspected terrorists. I think that if the goverment does this it will take a lot of weight off of the airlines, but in other aspects it may be more troublesome for the airlines because they have to wait to get the OK from the government to make sure that they can book a flight for each individual. But in the long run i think that becouase the Department of Homeland Security makes the potential terrorist lists, they have the most access to the lists and there for they may be able to be more efficent when it comes to checking the lists for booking flights, and the OK to get boarding passes.
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