WASHINGTON - The US government plans to open a complaint service for passengers who believe they have been mistakenly placed on a “no-fly” list of terror suspects, the Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday.The service, due to begin on February 20, will permit passengers who have been subjected repeatedly to extra security checks to file an inquiry “in order to have erroneous information corrected” in the government’s database, the DHS said in a statement. Additional details about how travelers can file and trace the progress of an inquiry will be available when the program launches next month, the department said.
US authorities meanwhile were conducting an elaborate case-by-case review of the names on the list of terror suspects, Kip Hawley, the director of the Transportation Security Administration, told a congressional hearing. “This effort will effectively cut the no-fly list in half,” Hawley told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
The no-fly list dramatically expanded following the attacks of September 11, 2001, with tens of thousands of names added amid numerous complaints of errors. In some cases, innocent passengers were included on the list because their names were similar to terror suspects. In September 2004, a US-bound plane with singer Cat Stevens, who now goes by the name Yusuf Islam, on board was diverted because his name appeared on the no-fly list. US Senator Edward Kennedy was delayed several times from boarding flights because his name appeared on the list by mistake.
| And Fat Boy was unhappy about it. |
Opening the complaint service, known as the DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (DHS TRIP), will improve the traveling experience for passengers and help focus government resources on genuine suspects, said Michael Chertoff, secretary for homeland security, in a statement.