Posted on: Saturday, December 11, 2004

Travel workers face ID checks

By Leslie Miller
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — New federal legislation will require airport and cruise-ship workers to have their identity checked against government watch lists, just like commercial airline passengers.

The change, included in the intelligence bill passed by Congress this week, means hundreds of thousands of additional names will be compared with those on two lists — one for people suspected of terrorism, the other for people the government says require additional scrutiny for some other reason.

Cruise passengers, but not crews, are checked against the lists within 15 minutes of a ship's departure. Once President Bush signs the bill into law, it will require passengers and crews to be checked before the ship sets sail. The procedures must start within six months after the bill becomes law.

Supporters say the changes add another layer of security for the traveling public, but critics of the lists contend they provide greater opportunity for innocent people to be mistakenly branded.

The lists are wrapped in secrecy. The government doesn't disclose criteria for placing people on them, how many names are listed or any of the identities.

In a number of well-publicized incidents, people with names similar to others on the lists were stopped from boarding planes, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

"To expand the use of something that's already so error-prone is shocking," said Marcia Hofmann, attorney for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based advocacy group.

There's no formal procedure for people to correct misinformation that caused their names to be added to the lists. The intelligence bill orders the Homeland Security Department to establish procedures for names to be removed as well as added.

The bill also requires the newly created director of national intelligence to set standards for placing people on the list and to report those criteria to Congress.

Tim Edgar, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, is skeptical.

"The government is more effective and efficient at getting people on the watch list than off it," he said.

Sen. Bill Nelson, who sponsored the cruise-ship provision, said as many as 5,000 passengers and 1,500 crew members travel on each ship.

"What you have is a floating city of thousands of people," said Nelson, D-Fla. "You cannot be too cautious."

The bill also orders airport workers to be checked against the terrorist watch list before they are allowed unescorted beyond security checkpoints or on the tarmac.