Secure Flight Suspended

TSA announced in hearings before the Senate Commerce Committee that they've suspended plans for Secure Flight, the "ambitious program to check every domestic airline passenger’s name against government watch lists."

This appears to be largely based on a GAO report (.pdf) finding that the agency "has not followed a disciplined life cycle approach to manage systems development, or fully defined systems requirements" and recommending that “much work be done” before the system can go live.

The report is 40 pages long and ripe with specific examples of how the lack of documentation and specifications makes it impossible to determine what the program called "Secure Flight" really is, or how it may affect air travelers’ privacy.

This was largely the conclusion of our Committe's report on the program-- that we were unable to report on the security and privacy implications of secure flight because we weren't really sure what the specifications for the program were. I don't have as much experience evaluating systems as Bruce Schneier or Ed Felton, but I was flabbergasted at how we were expected to evaluate something that didn't even exist on paper at the time our committee was in session. I'm glad to know we weren't alone in being confused.

I'm sure we'll see Secure Flight resurrected under a new name (CAPPS III??) but for now, I'm just happy to say SF RIP.