Homeland Security: Air Passenger Prescreening and Counterterrorism

The adequacy of existing systems to screen air passengers against terrorist watch lists has been questioned, most notably by the 911 Commission. Yet, considerable controversy surrounds air passenger prescreening systems, such as the No Fly or Automatic Selectee lists, underscoring that screening passengers for more intensive searches of their persons or baggage, or to prevent them from boarding an aircraft in the event of a terrorist watch list hit, is likely to be a difficult proposition for the federal agencies tasked with aviation security. Today, those agencies principally include the Department of Homeland Security s DHS s Transportation Security Administration TSA and Customs and Border Protection CBP, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI-administered Terrorist Screening Center TSC.