By Calvin Biesecker
The Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) new administrator told a House panel yesterday that he is open to having a Registered Traveler (RT) program in the nation’s airports and is conducting a review of the program, although he has no timeframe for making a decision.
“I’m open to the Registered Traveler program,” John Pistole told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security. “And I think it’s a question of the business model and the viability of that business model, so I’m open to businesses trying to develop that and if that helps reduce risk I’m all in favor of that.”
The RT program was pilot tested by TSA about seven years ago as a possible way to allow known travelers–that is individuals who have undergone a background check and submitted certain biometrics to repeatedly verify their identity–to receive expedited, and even limited, screening at airport checkpoints. However, while the program found limited success with at least one public company that provided RT services to its paid members, TSA several years ago decided against supporting the program due to the threat of “clean skin” terrorists.
Former TSA Administrator Kip Hawley in August 2007 said that the RT program has hope but that there is no guarantee that program members aren’t terrorists, saying that persons that may intend to harm the United States but who have done nothing so far to warrant being put on a watchlist could get into the program (Defense Daily, Aug. 2, 2007). He also said that the watchlist checks that TSA was doing on people enrolling with RT service providers were minimal and shouldn’t be confused with a robust background check that would provide greater assurance that a person isn’t a terrorist.
Pistole acknowledged that he has concerns with a potential clean skin terrorist, citing the example of Faisal Shahzad, who failed earlier this year in attempting to explode a car bomb in New York’s Time Square, saying there was little information connecting him to terrorist activity.
However, Pistole said, “it does come down to managing risk and how can we allocate our resources against that risk in the best possible fashion.”
Responding to a question about the longstanding issue of some of the nation’s airports spending money shortly after 9/11 to install inline explosives detection systems to screen checked baggage with the expectation that the federal government would eventually reimburse them at least in part, Pistole said he has reviewed this.
About $400 million worth of work was done, Pistole said. “So the issue that I am dealing with is the traveling public in a better situation if I apply that money to airports that do not have the approved security equipment in theirs or do I take that money and apply that to those which already do. [That] Gets back to the risk management issue.”