Tsa Launches Secure Flight

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But how do you reconcile the blizzard of watch-list names—some as common as Nelson, which has been a hassle for singer/actor David Nelson of Ozzie & Harriet TV fame—with the actual bad guys who are threats to aviation?

Enter Secure Flight, a stripped-down version of CAPPS II. The TSA's theory: If passengers submit their exact names, dates of birth, and their gender when they make reservations, the agency could proactively separate the terrorist Nelsons from the television Nelsons, and guarantee that the average Joe—or, in my case, the average Joseph Angelo—won't be fingered as a potential troublemaker.

Theoretically, giving the TSA that basic information seems logical enough. But the logistics are something else again: Airline websites and reservations systems, third-party travel agencies, and the GDS (global distribution system) computers that power those ticketing engines haven't been programmed to gather birthday and gender data. And Secure Flight's insistence that the name on a ticket exactly match the name on a traveler's identification is also problematic: Fliers often use several kinds of ID that do not always have exactly the same name. (Does your driver's license and passport have exactly the same name on it?) Many travelers have existing airline profiles and frequent-flier program membership under names that do not exactly match the one on their IDs.

Another fly in the Secure Flight ointment: While the TSA is assuming the watch list functions from the airlines, the carriers will still be required to gather the name, birth date, and gender information and transmit it to the agency. Meshing the airline computers with the TSA systems has been troublesome in the past and, from the outside, it looks like very little planning has been done to ensure that Secure Flight runs smoothly.

The TSA "announced this thing in 2005 and, as usual, they announced it without considering practical realities," one airline executive told me last week. "And any time you deal with the government on stuff like this, it's a nightmare."

What can you do about all of this? For now, very little. Settle on a single form of identification for all travel purposes and make sure that you use that name exactly when making reservations. Check that the name that airlines have for you—on preference profiles, frequent-flier programs, airport club memberships, etc.—matches the name on your chosen form of identification.

Then wait for that glorious day when the TSA solemnly and suddenly, and almost assuredly without advance warning, decides that Secure Flight is in effect across the nation's airline system.

The Fine Print…
You may wonder why I haven't asked anyone from the Transportation Security Administration to comment on Secure Flight. The reason is simple: No one is really in charge of the agency. The Bush-era administrator, Kip Hawley, left with the previous president and the Obama Administration has yet to name his successor. Everyone, from acting administrator Gale Rossides on down, is a Bush holdover. And no one seems to know what President Obama or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano thinks about the TSA, Secure Flight, or any airline-security issue.

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