TSA chief: no-fly lists work, but it's a secret

By Cory Doctorow at 5:35 am Wednesday, Aug 1

Security expert Bruce Schneier is serializing a five-part interview with TSA head Kip Hawley. Today, they talk about no-fly lists and ID checks. Schneier points out all the ways that these measures fail -- and all the ways that they compromise our freedom, and Hawley counters that they're actually very good, but only in ways that are too secret to let us know about them. Accountability? Who needs it?

Let's talk about ID checks. I've called the no-fly list a list of people so dangerous they cannot be allowed to fly under any circumstance, yet so innocent we can't arrest them even under the Patriot Act. Except that's not even true; anyone, no matter how dangerous they are, can fly without an ID ­or by using someone else's boarding pass. And the list itself is filled with people who shouldn't be on it -- dead people, people in jail, and so on -- and primarily catches innocents with similar names. Why are you bothering?

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See also:
TSA chief promises an eternity of unshoeing
Bruce Schneier interviews TSA head Kip Hawley