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Release Date: August 9, 2007
TSA Administrator Kip Hawley, CBP Commissioner Ralph Basham and Secretary Michael Chertoff. (DHS Photo/Bahler)
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010
Secretary Chertoff: Good morning, everybody. I'm joined by Kip Hawley, who is the Administrator of TSA, and by Commissioner Ralph Basham of Customs and Border Protection, and Kathy Kraninger, who is the head of our Screening Coordination Office. I want to thank you all for joining us today.
As you'll recall, it was a year ago this month that our British counterparts uncovered a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners aimed for the United States. Fortunately, sound intelligence, international cooperation and quick action by law enforcement officials on both sides of the Atlantic prevented that very serious plot from becoming a reality. But the plot does serve as a stark reminder that the threat to air travel by terrorists still exists, and that we must continue to do everything in our power to prevent this kind of threat from being carried out.
Since September 11th, we've taken very substantial steps to improve aviation security, and we've done so in a way that maintains the efficiency and convenience as far as possible to the traveling public. Well-trained transportation security officers screen passengers and baggage across the country. Federal Air Marshals protect hundreds of domestic and international flights every day. We've hardened cockpit doors, we've armed pilots to defend the flight deck, and we've strengthened air cargo security.
Today, I'm delighted to announce two additional measures, both 9/11 Commission recommendations, that will further enhance our ability to identify potentially dangerous people before they are allowed to board an aircraft.
The first of these steps involves the Question of the timing of when we get information from airlines about who is on an airplane bound for the United States. Under the current rule, airlines provide what we call passenger manifest data identifying who's getting on the flight to Customs and Border Protection after the flight has already left the ground. That is too late. As the London plot demonstrated, we need to do everything in our power to identify potential threats before that airplane takes off.
Today we are publishing a final rule that will require international air carriers to provide passenger lists to Customs and Border Protection before boarding is completed and before that plane takes off. When the rule takes effect, DHS will perform watch list checks against this verified passenger data in order to determine whether someone who is on that flight should not be allowed to take off in the airplane. This will eliminate the potential for flight diversions or deplaning due to watch list concerns.
The second step we're taking involves strengthening air travel or prescreening domestically through our Secure Flight program. Under the current system, it is the airline that has the responsibility for checking domestic passenger names against the terrorist watch list, which is provided by TSA. Unfortunately, as a lot of travelers know, this process sometimes leads to inconsistencies in how the list is checked and how it's maintained by the airlines, and the result of that is frustration for travelers.
Today, we're publishing a notice of proposed rulemaking, which is the first step in the final rulemaking process that would give TSA direct control of the watch list-checking mechanism. Under this rule, TSA is going to receive some very limited passenger information from the airlines as early as 72 hours before a flight is due to take off. TSA will check it against the watch list provided by the Terrorist Screening Center, and transmit the results back to the airline operators. In the case of a watch list match, TSA will have the time to coordinate the appropriate action, whether it involves designating someone for secondary screening, notifying law enforcement to come and conduct an interview, or, if necessary, preventing a person from getting on an airplane.
Very simply, we're taking a practical security measure that already exists, which is checking the watch list, as recommended by the 9/11 Commission, and we're streamlining the process and unifying it by taking the responsibility for doing the checks away from the airlines and giving it to TSA. This is going to produce better security, create a more consistent and uniform prescreening process, and it's going to reduce potential misidentification issues, which we've all heard about from time to time.
We're going to begin to - we're prepared to begin testing of this system and we'll continue to work with the travel industry, airlines and other stakeholders in developing the program. Because this is an initial notice of rulemaking, we're going to have an opportunity to have comments and assess people's reactions to what we're proposing to do, and feedback is going to be an important element of what we take into account before we finalize the rule next year.
What both of these initiatives have in common is that they continue to build on the protections that safeguard our country against dangerous people, and they're also part of the process of unifying and streamlining the Department of Homeland Security.
Last summer I established the Screening Coordination Office to integrate all of our department's screening efforts, whether they take place at land, air and sea. And today's announcement is a concrete example of the value this office brings. Essentially, we're creating one-stop shopping for screening instead of having various kinds of uncoordinated programs taking place in different components of the department.
With the efforts of the Screening Coordination Office, Customs and Border Patrol and TSA, we were able to design an integrated prescreening process that operates and leverages across all of the department's existing investments. We've been able to provide the airline industry with one set of technical requirements for transmitting information and a unified concept of operations. And we're outlining a vision for a one-step watch list matching process. Our ultimate goal for Secure Flight is a single DHS solution for screening passengers, and TSA will eventually assume watch list matching for both domestic and international flights under this program.
Now, I recognize that these efforts to secure our homeland sometimes raise concerns by people who are focused on the issue of privacy. And I want to make it clear that at every step of the process, privacy has been one of our central concerns as well. I want to be very straightforward about this: Secure Flight will not do any harm to personal privacy. It's not going to rely on collecting commercial data; it's not going to assign a risk score to passengers; it's not going to try to predict behavior. It's only designed to collect a minimum amount of personal identifying information so that we can do an effective job of matching the traveler to a person whose name and identity is on a watch list. And of course, this watch list matching was one of the core 9/11 Commission recommendations that arises out of the experience we had, tragically, in September 2001.
Our proposal is simply this, collect two mandatory pieces of information from the airlines: the full name of the passenger and the passenger's travel identity. Collection of a couple of other pieces of information, like date of birth and gender, which would help us be a little more precise in matching, is a proposal that we're laying out there and we're going to ask people to address in the rulemaking process as an option for airlines to request as a way of making it easier for travelers to avoid misidentifications.
The whole point here is to help us get a little bit of information about identification so we can differentiate the innocent passenger from the person with the same name who happens to be on a watch list. And if a passenger is willing to provide that information, the airline would send it to TSA and it's going to result in reduced inconvenience to the traveling public.
We're issuing a privacy impact assessment and a systems of record notice in conjunction with this notice of proposed rulemaking to explain more precisely how TSA is going to collect, use, store and protect personal identification information as part of the Secure Flight program. And, this will identify any minimal privacy risks and the mitigation measures that we plan to take to reduce or eliminate them. In addition, our Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, DHS TRIP, is available for passengers who feel they've been improperly delayed or prohibited from boarding an aircraft.
I want to reiterate what is ultimately behind today's announcement: our determination to do everything we reasonably can to protect the traveling public and the people in this country from dangerous individuals who want to come in and do us the kind of harm that people tried to do last year traveling from the United Kingdom to the United States. Knowing in advance who's going to board an overseas flight to the U.S. or who's boarding a domestic flight and checking them out against our existing information and watch lists is vital to keeping our country safe as we continue to facilitate legitimate air travel. Secure Flight is going to help us achieve this while benefiting passengers and air carriers alike, and hopefully making it even more convenient than it is now to travel using our international airways.
And with that, I'll answer some Questions. I also have others here to help.
Yes.
Question: Does this integration mean that domestic travelers now, as well as international travelers, will have their data submitted to customs' automatic targeted system?
Secretary Chertoff: No, no. Domestic travelers will not have their data submitted to customs.
Question: Not to ATS.
Secretary Chertoff: Correct. It's [secure flight] just for domestic travelers. It is only about matching the name to the watch list. Domestic travelers will not be part of the automated targeting system. That is exclusively for international travelers.
Question: With respect to the international traveler and the information being given 30 minutes before, as that helps avoid diverting flights back and all of that, what about - we all know there are issues with common names - different spellings of names, watch lists, mistakes, et cetera. Are you saying that absolutely no flight will take off, then, unless it's all clear, (inaudible) keep flights on the ground or if there's any possible concern, you'll take a passenger off?
Secretary Chertoff: I think this is going to dramatically minimize the number of times a flight takes off after the fact that someone is on a watch list. Can I tell you there will never be a mistake? Of course not. I'm quite sure that there will be occasional circumstances where there's either a mistake or something happens, is lost in the translation, and there has to be a diversion. But it will -
Question: It will minimize diversions in the air, but what about delays on the ground?
Secretary Chertoff: It should minimize that as well, because by getting as much of this information in advance as we can, we can take the screening process ahead of the departure time, we can address issues before the plane is due to depart, we can resolve them before the plane is due to depart, so that - I can't guarantee you that we're going to eliminate travel delays, because we all know the weather and the systems have a lot to do with that. But it's going to really reduce any delays that are attributable to our screening process.
Question: If the TSA is running the checks on Secure Flight, are they going to be working from the very same watch list that the airlines had, or are they going to have some enhancements -
Secretary Chertoff: It will be a much more up-to-date watch list than the airlines have, because we'll be getting real-time access to the watch list. Under the current system, we've had to get the watch list and we've had to send it to the airlines. And then the airline's ability to screen depends on how frequently they update their list. So if they're slow, or if they do it once a day or more slowly than that, they're going to be more out of date. This gives us a much closer connection to the real-time information.
Question: And you're exploring the possibility of getting date of birth and gender, but during this test period, travelers won't be asked to provide that, or will they?
Secretary Chertoff: Well, I think the thought is that it's going to be a voluntary process. We would ask people - we wouldn't require them to provide it. I think exactly how we test it remains to be maybe fleshed out a little bit. But the key here is, it's not going to be a mandatory requirement. What we will tell people, if you give us your date of birth and your sex, that will be a big step forward in reducing the problem of a common name, where you have a John Smith who's on the list, and then there's thousands of John Smiths and you have to separate them out without a date of birth to do it.
Yes.
Question: Mr. Secretary, the data that you collect and use to release an airline to take off, will this data be warehoused, or will it be disposed of shortly after takeoff? So how long can people expect this list to remain viable?
Secretary Chertoff: On the domestic side, for the watch list, obviously we have the watch list and we keep the watch list. We're not going to keep the manifest data. We're simply going to take it, bang it up against the watch list, and then we have no more interest in it.
Question: So it will be removed -
Secretary Chertoff: Disposed of, yes.
Question: Disposed, okay.
Question: How many of the PNR fields are you looking at, are you getting in advance?
Secretary Chertoff: Well, first of all, let me make it very clear: PNR is completely different than what we're talking about. Right, that's a totally separate issue, and I'll try to explain it in simple terms. What we're getting under this APIS system is your passport data. It's basically your name, citizenship, date of birth - the stuff that appears on the page of the passport. It is information that the government itself collects and is empowered to collect.
PNR data, now there's obviously - sometimes the same information appears on both, because PNR involves a name as well, PNR data is commercial data. That is governed, of course, now by this agreement that we've entered into with the Europeans. APIS data is not technically the same, although we will deal with that data in the same way as we deal with the PNR data in terms of privacy. We'll protect it in the same way.
Question: That won't - you won't be getting the PNR data before takeoff?
Secretary Chertoff: We do get PNR data before takeoff. But that comes from a different system. And that comes - that's data that the airline collects as part of their preexisting commercial activities. The APIS data is information specifically collected for purposes of addressing our border entry requirements.
Question: Mr. Secretary, will you then be retaining any APIS data in warehousing, or -
Secretary Chertoff: Well, we do retain APIS data because it's our typical border entry data. It's like we do - we retain all the data that we collect from people when they enter the United States; we collect their passport information. That's the basis of US-VISIT.
Question: Mr. Secretary, is there any other example of a potential terrorist attack that has been thwarted to underscore the importance of this security measure?
Secretary Chertoff: Well, I mean, obviously we had the shoe bomber in December of 2001. That's an example of someone who was allowed to get on a plane in Paris and who tried to detonate a bomb. And had that person succeeded in doing so, there would have been obviously a great loss of life in the airplane.
So if you go back to the shoe bomber, if you go back to the early '90s when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was trying to put bombs on 11 airplanes flying across the Pacific to blow them up simultaneously, time and again Al-Qaeda has emphasized its interest in carrying out attacks directed at the aviation industry. The most recent attack, obviously, or the attempt we saw from terrorists, was last year in London.
So this is a very live issue, and I think the traveling public ought to be reassured that we are continuing to constantly upgrade our security measures to protect the airways that we're all using.
Question: But there aren't any potential attacks that the American public doesn't know about?
Secretary Chertoff: Well, I mean, obviously we're always looking - there's classified threat information, which I have no intention of talking about, but I think the point is well made by the things that are public, because if that attack last year had been successful, you would have seen, at its worst, a loss of life rivaling 9/11, and just an incalculable damage to the international aviation system. And that would just be a horror show.
Yes, one last Question.
Question: How would you characterize the current threat to aviation versus other forms of mass transit?
Secretary Chertoff: Well, of course, you know we're at orange with respect to aviation. And we have been since last year's threat. There is a traditional, persisting interest on the part of terrorists in focusing on the aviation system. Some of that is because there's a tremendous amount of consequence and damage and loss of life that can flow from that. Part of it is because I think international aviation symbolizes what they hate about - what terrorists hate about the world, which is the free movement of people and ideas.
But obviously we also look at other forms of transportation. We have put these what we call viper teams, these mobile teams with dogs and modern explosive-sensing equipment into train stations, into subways, all across the country on a random basis. We're doing all kinds of things at every level of transportation. But I have to say, if you look at the history of al Qaeda's efforts, the airplane has been a particular favorite of theirs, in terms of targeting.
Question: Can I ask you for a gut check regarding your feeling about the current threat environment?
Secretary Chertoff: What I've said, what the National Intelligence Estimate said, what my colleagues overseas have said, other ministers overseas have said, are all different ways of saying the same thing.
Right now, again, there's not a specific credible threat with respect to a near-term or imminent attack on the homeland. But the environment is, I think, somewhat heightened in terms of threat. We are concerned about what we've seen in South Asia. We're concerned about what we've seen in Europe, including what we saw a month ago in London. All of these things added up together - the frequency of statements we see publicly, the history of what we've seen - all of these things, I think, give us a sense that we're entering a period where the threat is perhaps somewhat heightened.
At the same time, the good news is, as evidenced by this statement, every day, every week, every month, we are working to upgrade the level of security. We are much more secure now than we were a year ago or two years ago, and we're going to be continuing to build security measures. We're going to make them - we're going to have random changes; we're going to change up what we do so people can't figure it out in advance. Some things we're going to do are going to be visible; some things we're going to do are not going to be visible. I intend to use every tool at my disposal, including what the intelligence community is able to gather, using some of the things that have been talked about in the last week, to protect the American public 24-7.
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This page was last reviewed/modified on August 9, 2007.
