WashingtonWire - 2005-08-01

GAO: TSA Violated Privacy Act By Securing Flight Data
Federal government investigators last week charged that the Transportation Security Administration compiled information on at least 250,000 people earlier this year in violation of privacy laws when it tested anti-terrorism program Secure Flight. The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, said in a report Friday that TSA collected passenger data in ways that were "inconsistent" with the Privacy Act even after telling the public it wouldn't do so. During the Secure Flight testing period, TSA compared information from airline reservation systems such as passenger names and flight numbers with names on government watch lists believed to be known or suspected terrorists. TSA collected and stored more than 100 million records from private companies containing such information as addresses, Social Security numbers and phone numbers to verify accuracy of passenger-supplied data. TSA failed to adequately inform the public that it was using the information, GAO said. "TSA did not fully disclose to the public its use of personal information," GAO Homeland Security and Justice Issues director Cathleen Berrick said in the report. "In particular, the public was not made fully aware of, nor had the opportunity to comment on, TSA's use of personal information drawn from commercial sources to test aspects of the Secure Flight program." TSA drew fire from Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), who wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and urged him to keep closer tabs on the program. "Given fundamental concerns surrounding the government's use of personal information and the unfortunate history of TSA's passenger prescreening program, careless missteps such as this jeopardize the public trust and DHS' ability to deploy a much-needed, new system," Collins and Lieberman wrote. In a response to the GAO report, Steven Pecinovsky, the Homeland Security Department's liaison to GAO, said the department has taken corrective actions to address GAO's concerns, while insisting the agency needs commercial data to ensure the Secure Flight program works as intended. "The purpose of the Secure Flight commercial data test is to evaluate the government's ability to verify the identities of passengers using commercial data and to improve the efficacy of watch list comparisons by making passenger information more complete and accurate using commercial data," he said.

FAA, Air Traffic Controllers at Odds Over New Contract
The Federal Aviation Administration and the air traffic controllers union kicked off a new round of labor negotiations with dueling press conferences. The government said it would seek a "fundamental reform" of its labor agreement that holds the line on pay raises as union representatives accused the agency of negotiating in bad faith and said it wasn't following through on pledges to hire more controllers and invest in new equipment. The talks seek to replace a labor contract last ratified in 1998 and extended for two years in 2003. The current contract expires in September, although an impasse won't lead to a repeat of the 1981 walkout that resulted in President Ronald Reagan firing controllers because, by law, the existing contract remains in force until agreement on a new one is reached. That didn't keep both sides from entering the negotiations with polarized expectations. "We cannot afford an agreement like 1998 that saddled the FAA with excessive costs, archaic work rules and restrictions on our ability to modernize the system," said FAA administrator Marion Blakey. Blakey said air traffic controllers, some of whom make as much as $200,000 annually, are the highest-paid civil servants. Labor costs account for 80 percent of FAA's operating budget, she said, and the agency is facing limited revenue, thanks to a dwindling Aviation Trust Fund. John Carr, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said financial hardship complaints by FAA ring hollow when the agency can afford to hold dozens of press conferences nationwide on the eve of the labor talks. "Instead of negotiating in good faith, the FAA is launching a coordinated media assault aimed at justifying an ill-advised plan that would lead to fewer controllers guiding more planes," Carr said. Carr said there are 1,000 fewer air traffic controllers than there were seven years ago and those on the job are handling heavier workloads than in the 1990s. He said FAA also has failed to make necessary technological investments to help controllers do their jobs. "The FAA is making very misleading statements about the amount air traffic controllers are paid," Carr said. "We think controllers are fairly and accurately compensated for high-stress, high-tech work. Some controllers make more because of increased overtime—that's because the FAA has failed to hire and train controllers in order to meet the needs of our ever more crowded skies."