Hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee - Progress on H.R. 1, Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007

Interview

Hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee - Progress on H.R. 1, Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007

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SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Thank you, Senator. Thank you.

Five years ago, the 9/11 commission provided Congress and the American people with a clear assessment of a need to reform our approaches for security. And I believe the TSA was created in 2001 -- is that correct? -- has done some good work. But I think of the assessment that you received in 2005 when 10 members of the 9/11 commission issued a report card that found that the TSA was either failing or providing unsatisfactory progress in a number of key areas. And my questions are really to follow up on Senator Snowe, first about the cargo screening and if you think that the 100 percent goal is possible to meet. And I just want to clear the record that you did say we would meet the goals of the 9/11 bill recommendation. I think that's 50 percent of all air cargo carried on commercial airplanes screened within 18 months; all commercial air cargo screened within 3 years. Is that correct?

MR. HAWLEY: That's correct, yes, ma'am.

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: And do you think it's possible to get to 100 percent, or is that -- and how would we do that?

MR. HAWLEY: Yes. And I think Ms. Berrick, in her answer to Senator Snowe, outlined a lot of the tools that we're going to use. And we have followed very closely the work with our international partners. And some of those programs are, we feel, capable of being implemented here. And some of the technology that Ms. Berrick mentioned that we're not currently using could be configured to use in cargo. So we are working through that right now, and I -- this committee was instrumental in making it such that we are in fact going to be able to do it and get the real screening that doesn't rely on the so-called known shipper program that is real screening in the way we all know we mean it. And I think the other important piece is with our international partners that as we align with them we are in frequent conversations with our partners around the world to have a unified security measure; that is, if we meet those deadlines, it would be a similar security blanket for our trading partners as well.

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Okay, thank you.

Ms. Berrick, I just have some questions about the GAO report on the passenger screening. And I know that the GAO found a lack of a standardized process for all airlines when they look at these cleared lists for passengers and that they've contributed to delays. Could you talk a little bit about that and what those problems are? And I know the Secure Flight program can't become operational until you certify that the TSA has satisfied the requirements. What's the barriers to getting that satisfied and how do we fix it?

MS. BERRICK: Sure. In terms of the current process, the pre- screening passengers, the way it works is air carriers match passenger information against the terrorist watch list that TSA supplies to them to determine if there's any high risk passengers that shouldn't be allowed on a flight.

The problem with the current process is that air carriers all do it a little bit differently. Some may have really rigorous methods for doing name matching. Others may use a manual process. So theoretically you could be on one flight with one carrier and not be a match, get on a plane with no problem. You could be on another carrier and be a match because your name sounds similar to someone that's on the terrorist watch list.

So with the development of Secure Flight, if Secure Flight operates as intended, it should correct that problem, because the government will be taking over the function. They'll be doing the name matching consistently. They'll be using a more robust methodology to match passenger information. And it also provides a security benefit in that the government won't have to provide the terrorist watch list to the private sector. Because right now, again, the carriers are receiving this. Some carriers contract out with foreign countries, and the foreign countries are actually doing the name matching. So obviously there's concerns there.

Secure Flight -- in the past we reported that the reason the program has had problems -- again, this is in the past -- was that TSA wasn't following a discipline development process. TSA even has procedures on how you go about developing systems like this. And the need that they felt to implement the program quickly, some of those requirements were bypassed. Since that time, TSA has stood down and rebaselined their program consistent with GAO recommendations. They've taken a lot of positive action to help ensure Secure Flight's success, including following more disciplined processes, bringing in people with the appropriate skills. We're still looking at Secure Flight. And, in fact, we're going to be reporting in response to the 9/11 Act in January of 2008 on what our assessment is of TSA's progress. Right now it's too early for us to conclude --

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: But do you know how long it will take to get it certified and what the timetable is?

MS. BERRICK: Well, one of the things we've been asked in the 9/11 mandate was to look at TSA's time frame for fielding a program to determine whether or not we think it's reasonable. So that's one of the things we'll report in January. We don't have an answer yet on that.

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Mr. Hawley, do you want to add anything?

MR. HAWLEY: I think that's a good summation. And I think we now have got the program in good shape. The rule is out, we've had the public comment. We're going to be closing off public comment and writing the final rule. And then the various certifications -- we're about a third of the way through from our end of that work, and it will come down to the funding level for FY '08 as to exactly how fast the program progresses.

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Back, Ms. Berrick, to the issue you raised about the privacy concern. So the actual names of the people on this list are going to -- is it foreign governments? Or what's happening?

MS. BERRICK: In some cases under the current process air carriers who do, again, the matching, they'll contract out and have a contractor do the matching. And in some cases they have done that with companies located in foreign countries. So that has happened. The majority of carriers don't do that, but some have.

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Should the Congress take seriously the reports that airlines have supplied DHS with substantial information on passengers without them knowing it, some of these privacy concerns that have been raised?

MS. BERRICK: We haven't looked at privacy with respect to the current process. We are looking at that as a part of Secure Flight. In the past we have reported that there were some problems in terms of TSA reporting how they're using passenger data during testing of the Secure Flight program. Since that time, and our work with TSA, we've found that they've built in more privacy safeguards into the program, again, that are positive. The recent privacy notice that they've implemented have contained information that in fact GAO recommended. So we think they're moving in the right direction. But, again, in terms of Secure Flight protecting privacy, it's too early for us at this point to draw any conclusions. But we will be talking about that in our January report.

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.

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