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ID Cards for `Trusted Travelers' Run Into Some Thorny Questions

------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 12:44:39 -0400 To: Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs@philodox.com>, cryptography@wasabisystems.com From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com> Subject: ID Cards for `Trusted Travelers' Run Into Some Thorny Questions

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/09/technology/09PASS.html?todaysheadlines=&pagewanted=print&position=top

April 9, 2002

ID Cards for `Trusted Travelers' Run Into Some Thorny Questions

By MATTHEW L. WALD

ASHINGTON, April 8 - The idea seemed simple: figure out who the good guys are, give them easy-to-recognize and hard-to-counterfeit ID cards and let them breeze past airport security.

Everybody would win, advocates say. Holders of the "trusted traveler" cards would save time. Screeners would have fewer bodies to inspect - there were 1.8 billion in 2000, according to the Transportation Department - and could concentrate on identifying potential terrorists. And passengers would feel safer.

There is only one problem: It is proving extraordinarily difficult to figure out who would qualify for a card that would work as advertised.

"What makes a trusted traveler?" asked Richard P. Eastman, who writes software for airlines and travel agencies. "The guy who travels all the time; who travels on business; who has a reason to travel. Does that mean the terrorist can't penetrate that group? Of course he can."

For weeks the new Transportation Security Administration has focused on more pressing problems, like taking over the screening points, and officials have equivocated on whether such a card is feasible. Now, though, with the summer travel season approaching, lines will grow longer if the normal pattern holds and millions of vacationers flood the airports. That will take frequent fliers' frustration back up to the boiling point. Pressures on politicians to do something are rising, and some experts say the only feasible solution will be some sort of travel card.

Probably the biggest obstacle to creating the airport equivalent of an E-Z Pass is doubt about its effectiveness. After all, terrorists can be adept at blending into the society they plan to attack, so who can guarantee they won't fool the gatekeepers? "The guys who did this exercise on Sept. 11 spent the better part of four years becoming nondescript," Mr. Eastman pointed out.

The federal government seems to be of two minds. Tom Ridge, director of homeland security, said the proposed cards would help reduce bottlenecks. And Norman Y. Mineta, the secretary of transportation, said his department was open to some type of trusted-traveler ID card system.

Yet John Magaw, the under secretary of transportation who is the head of the new Transportation Security Administration, worries that the card might not be smart enough to thwart hijackers."Terrorists are not in any hurry," he said. "For them, the soup of revenge is best served cold."

Even if a risk-free card could be devised, civil libertarians would probably fight it. The American Civil Liberties Union has ridiculed the trusted-traveler concept as a "get out of security free" card. These critics argue that it would be impossible to safeguard the confidential information travelers would have to divulge about themselves. And they contend that a smart card would set a dangerous precedent.

"Quickly enough, policy makers are going to say, `If this works, let's require everyone to go through background checks before they get on a plane,' " said Barry S. Steinhardt, director of the A.C.L.U.'s program on science and technology.

The card would be sophisticated but not technically difficult to produce. At a minimum, experts say, a card should be able to store a fingerprint or a retina scan and verify to a computer that the holder's finger or eye matched. The computer should be able to check that the card had not been revoked. So far, the government has not even been able to devise a card for flight attendants, pilots or Secret Service agents.

Frequent travelers, however, create a commercial imperative. Though they are mostly unorganized, they are voting with their feet and abandoning air travel in droves to avoid the long lines. In a recent survey, fully 60 percent said they had cut back on their flying purely to avoid airport problems.

Take Steven M. Fetter of Rumson, N.J. He runs his own energy consulting firm, Regulation UnFettered, and makes frequent flights out of Newark International Airport to destinations all over the United States and Europe. Before starting his business, Mr. Fetter, 50, held a variety of jobs with states and the federal government, including a stint as a senior official in the Labor Department.

He is an unlikely terrorist, but he gets the same scrutiny as everybody else at security booths, and has the horror stories to show for it. To beat a three-hour delay he heard about at the New Orleans airport in October, for example, he got to the airport two and a half hours early, zipped through the lines in 20 minutes and had to kill more than two hours.

Mr. Fetter says he would happily give all kinds of information about himself in return for a traveler's card that could spare him such frustrations. "Rather than search people like myself, they should focus on people who want to go nowhere near this card idea," he said.

Mr. Fetter, who is a platinum-class traveler on Continental Airlines (news/quote), is frightening for the airlines because he is typical. The dissatisfaction of business travelers is creating alarm at airlines. The industry is awash in red ink, with losses expected to approach $4 billion this year. Yet just a few hundred thousand road warriors account for more than half their revenues. Winning them back is the key to future profitability.

But the process of setting security rules has changed. When the Federal Aviation Administration was in charge, the airlines had a sympathetic ear when they raised commercial concerns. Now security is in the hands of a separate division of the Transportation Department.

"This is the first test, really, for a new agency," said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who is not known as a friend of the airlines. Congress set up the Transportation Security Administration to be more independent of the industries it regulates, he said.

After Sept. 11, relatively few politicians have been willing to second-guess the agency. Representative John A. Culbertson, Republican of Texas, came out strongly for a trusted-traveler card but could find only 13 colleagues to sign a letter to Mr. Magaw in January calling for it.

Some consumer advocates are skeptical the card will work. "If they start letting some people through security, it blows the whole security program," said Kathy Lynch, the project manager at the Aviation Consumer Action Project, a group founded by Ralph Nader in 1971. "Terrorists can get ID's of any sort."

Ms. Lynch predicted lines would become shorter as new technology and workers are put in place, and the Transportation Department is already committed to a goal of waits of no longer than 10 minutes.

But proponents say there must be an easier way than screening people who the government knows are making routine trips.

"If you start having a behavior pattern that is outside the norm for you, and inconsistent with your job, then even as a trusted traveler you bear further looking," said Mr. Eastman, the airline software author.

Something has to happen, the airlines say. "We can't and won't lose focus on security," said Leo F. Mullin, chairman of Delta Air Lines (news/quote), in a recent speech here. "But we must simultaneously reduce the hassle factor. It's possible and necessary to do both."

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