The Traveler Redress Inquiry Program "in most cases" has done little in the way of improving the situation of travelers who used the program, according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security inspector general report dated Sept. 11 and released this month.
When the Department of Homeland Security in early 2007 launched TRIP, it promised an expedited one-stop shop for travelers misplaced on the no-fly and selectee watchlists to gain relief from the woes that awaited them at the airport. What the public got was a program rife with inefficiencies, slow processing times, insufficient technology and miscommunication.
"Redress-seekers generally do not benefit from their participation in TRIP," DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner concluded in the partially redacted 165-page report. "Their cases often languish for extended periods and are handled inconsistently. Sometimes their cases are not brought to the attention of the appropriate agency. In other instances, cases are closed before all indicated agencies have had a chance to review them. Even when cases are properly reviewed, they do not usually produce meaningful results for redress-seekers."
The inspector general found room for improvement in the areas of security, privacy, reliability, timeliness and performance management, among others, following an investigation conducted in the field from March 2008 to September 2008. The investigation spanned more than 50 interviews and meetings with staff from the nine DHS agencies that support the program, officials from the departments of Justice and State, which also participate in TRIP, as well as travel industry representatives and airlines.
DHS in response to the inspector general's concerns agreed with 20 of the report's 24 recommendations and said some fixes could come into force as soon as this year. However, "a number of its proposed plans focus on solutions that will take more than a year to develop, rather than near-term corrective actions consistent with the pressing nature of the underlying issues," the inspector general said of DHS's response.
While DHS agreed with most of Skinner's recommendations—particularly those that seek to rectify technological shortcomings, workflow problems, management issues and funding—the department said the Secure Flight program, with its claim to dramatically reduce the number of falsely flagged travelers, will negate the need for others
(BTNonline, Aug. 17).Upon release in 2007, TRIP garnered industry praise, with the National Business Travel Association applauding the program's intent to reduce hassles for business travelers, and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives calling it "a step in the right direction," though it withheld further judgment until "the workings of the program are fully unveiled"
(BTNonline, Feb. 5, 2007).Travelers who feel they have been erroneously matched with a name on the no-fly or selectee watchlists submit a TRIP program redress form by mail, e-mail or through the TRIP online portal. If it is determined the traveler does not belong on such a list, they are placed on the "cleared" list.
Even if their request makes it that far, the report found travelers "rarely benefit from TSA's efforts to add them to the cleared list, as air carriers seldom use the list." Furthermore, even when carriers used the cleared list, the version given to them "is not a complete list of all cleared individuals." One carrier even mistakenly used the cleared list to flag flyers for secondary screening.
"Aggrieved travelers invest time and resources submitting information to TSA that TSA, in turn, expends time and resources entering into the cleared list," the report found. "However, these efforts rarely benefit travelers due to the air carriers' limited application of the cleared list."
American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel Christopher Calabrese said the report "reveals that DHS is promising travelers that their watchlist problems are solved, while privately admitting that airlines don't use the so-called 'clear' lists that would allow innocent travelers onto their flights."
Though Skinner's report directed DHS to "revise aviation security directives to specify how air carriers are to use the cleared list" and "provide more of the cleared list to air carriers," DHS rejected those recommendations as moot because the Secure Flight program shifts watchlist matching responsibilities from the airlines to the government.
The inspector general countered, "While Secure Flight employs the cleared list in its passenger vetting process, Secure Flight is not scheduled to vet all domestic air passengers until the end of 2010. TSA should pursue necessary regulatory changes now so that passengers on the cleared list can obtain meaningful relief in the interim."
TRIP reviews often don't make it far enough through the process to determine whether the redress seeker even belongs on the cleared list. The report found that as of October 2008, 5 percent of TRIP cases "had not been referred to or handled by the intended agency before they were closed," while more than 10 percent of cases were closed "before all of the associated case review and adjudication tasks had been addressed." In some cases, more information was required from redress-seekers, but they were not notified. "As of October 2008, TRIP had received 47,825 formal redress requests," the inspector general report noted. "Of these, it had closed 30,276, or 63 percent. A number of TRIP cases remained open pending submission of additional documentation by redress-seekers."
The inspector general found that only 24 percent of TRIP users who submitted incomplete petitions were notified of their error and asked to submit more information.
Skinner also found room for improvement in processing times, and DHS agreed with its recommendations. Examining a one-month snapshot in September 2008, "TRIP's e-mail intake processing backlog was five months long, and its mail intake processing was behind by more than one month. DHS had not started case review work on some redress cases that the office received in April 2008."
Once handled by a patchwork of systems controlled by different federal agencies, the TRIP program offered a single point of entry for travelers to submit redress requests. "Past redress efforts placed the onus on travelers to identify the proper agency and redress venue," the report said. The centralized process reduces overlapping requests and allows travelers to solve at once "several travel-related difficulties."
While the bulk of the issues from which travelers seek redress involve air travel, the program also is used to redress problems for points of entry, managed by Customs and Border Protection, and visa or passport issues, managed by the Department of State, among others. In total, the program touches nine DHS bodies in addition to the departments of State and Justice.
That coordination among various agencies contributed to some of the program's shortcomings, the report found. Though the report found that "overall, these agencies and offices have worked well together and supported the broader aims of the TRIP effort," it states that "the program has no clear authority to promote effective participation by the participating agencies and offices," and also found that agencies inconsistently reviewed TRIP requests, while some did not share the program's financial and personnel costs to which they committed.
Apart from the recommendations that DHS claimed Secure Flight would address, DHS largely concurred with the inspector general's directives and laid out action plans to address them. DHS's resolutions will come into force over the next two years, the agency said.
NBTA executive director and COO Michael McCormick in a statement said, "NBTA has supported Secure Flight to improve the watchlist matching used by airlines but believes that DHS, TSA and airlines should not wait for Secure Flight to be fully operational to help affected travelers. These weaknesses are one reason NBTA has supported the FAST Redress Act passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year, which would clarify how the redress process should operate, expand the areas where redress can be offered and improve the likelihood of obtaining necessary redress funding."
Until then, the inspector general said the program falls short on its promise to travelers. "The TRIP Web site advises travelers that the program can assist them with resolving a range of travel difficulties," the report said. "Our review of redress results revealed that those claims are overstated. While TRIP offers effective solutions to some traveler issues, it does not address other difficulties effectively, including the most common—watchlist misidentifications in aviation security settings. TRIP's inability to provide meaningful solutions in this area could damage the program's credibility."