DHS to Prescreen Air Travelers Starting Early Next Year
A delayed U.S. government program to prescreen the names of airline passengers against the government's Terror Watch List is going to start early next year.
When possible, information must be sent by the airlines 72 hours before a flight.
Passengers will then be put into one of three categories — no match, potential match or positive match.
Based on the boarding pass information sent back to the airlines, TSA screeners will then screen at the checkpoints accordingly, officials said.
If you're a positive match on the no-fly list you will not fly, period. If you're a match on the selectee list, you will undergo additional screening, but you can still fly. You might also be randomly selected for additional screening even if you are not on the list.
If you're a potential match but are eventually cleared by Homeland Security's redress system, you will be given a redress number. If you provide that number, officials can quickly look up your file and clear you for flight.
The Terror Watch Lists were once reported to contain over 900,000 names. More recently United States Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said there are only 2,500 names on the Watch List and just 10% of the names belong to U.S. citizens.
Staring next year, passengers will have to provide birth date, gender and their full name when making flight reservations. The DHS website calls this the Secure Flight Rule. Here's Chertoff explaining why this is needed and how it will work.
