Sunday, February 12, 2006

Airport checklists yanked by feds

I feel just gross. I've already half filled my wastebasket with soggy kleenex and I haven't read the news in two days so maybe this is old, but I find it a good sign that the useless Secure Flight name checking program is being sent back to the drawing board. It's always struck as a particularly inefficient and ineffective way to screen out terrorists. I mean don't you think someone wanting to blow the plane would just change their name a lot? As far as I can see, this was always a collosal waste of time and tax dollars designed solely to give the illusion of added security.

And this is something I wasn't aware of, but does give pause.
Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley did not say whether any security breaches had been discovered. An agency spokeswoman, Amy von Valter, told reporters, "We don't believe any passenger information has been compromised." [...]

According to the GAO testimony, Secure Flight was given formal authority to go live in September, but a government team found that the system software and hardware had 82 security vulnerabilities.
Great. So not only does it not enhance security, it's one more avenue for identity thieves to collect information. Never mind the drawing board, they should send this program to the scrap heap instead of spending another cent on it.
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