Government Executive ran a story yesterday entitled, “Lawmakers seek more precision in TSA’s terrorist watch list.” What makes me crazy is this statement:
“As more terrorists' identities emerge, the list is growing ever longer. Improved algorithms are needed to both narrow the search for potential hijackers and expedite the boarding process for scores of innocent passengers, according to several members of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment.”
In truth, the problem is hardly going to be solved with better algorithms. The problem is the ongoing lack of watch list fidelity (i.e., sparse attributes) which causes many false alarms because matching is many times based simply on name similarity alone.
Paul Rosenzweig and I wrote about remedies to this problem and called for improved watch list transparency and redress in this Heritage Foundation paper entitled “Correcting False Positives: Redress and the Watch List Conundrum.”
Other related posting: Comments on the TSA No-Fly and Selectee Watch List Process
We have read your article, “Correcting False Positives: Redress and the Watch List Conundrum”. We would like to see hearings on creating a redress process and think your articles provides an excellent road map for legislation. Please let us know if you are interested in joining our lobbying efforts.
Jonathan and Bethan
Americans for Terror Watchlist Reform
www.terrorwatchlist.org
Posted by: Bethan and Jonathan | June 27, 2006 at 06:38 PM