October 8, 2009 1:00 PM
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Unlikely Terrorists On No Fly List
And there is not much they can do about it. Right now their only recourse is to apply to get on another list of people who shouldn't be on the list. Donna Bucella of the Terrorist Screening Center says the inconvenience is regrettable, but it's a price society and anyone named Robert Johnson has to pay for security.
"Well, Robert Johnson will never get off the list," Bucella states.
And she acknowledges that the inconvenience won't go away. "Well, they're gonna be inconvenienced every time they try to go to the kiosk or try to do a curbside check-in because they do have the name of a person who's a known or suspected terrorist," she says.
But not all suspected terrorists are on the government's No Fly List. Joe Trento, while researching his book "Unsafe at Any Altitude" about airline security found what he thought was an obvious omission.
"Now Dawud Sallahuddin, real name David Belfield, lives in Tehran. He carried out the first assassination in Washington on behalf of Ayatollah Khomeini. Dress up as a mailman and shot somebody. He's allowed to fly," Trento says.
And neither are the original eleven British suspects recently charged with plotting to blow up ten commercial airliners with liquid explosives, even though they had reportedly been under surveillance for more than a year. A subject that Kip Hawley, the director of the Transportation Security Administration wanted to avoid.
Asked if the suspects were they on the list, Hawley tells Kroft, "I'm not going to get into all of the investigation or related to that investigation except to say that. With absolute confidence that anyone turned up in that investigation would not be allowed to actually get on an aircraft."
"The British say these people have been under investigation, surveillance for more than a year. But we managed to get a copy of the No Fly List for March, and none of these people were on the list," Kroft states.
"Well, I'm not going to confirm is and who isn't," Hawley replies.
What Kip Hawley wouldn't tell 60 Minutes is that some of the some of most dangerous terrorists never even end up on the No Fly List, because the intelligence agencies that supply the names don't want them circulated to airport employees in foreign countries for fear that they could end up in the hands of the terrorists.
Cathy Berrick, the Director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues for the General Accounting Office told Kroft that the lists that the airlines get have been sanitized of the most sensitive information.
"They're not given all of the names for security reasons because the government doesn't want to have that information outside of the government," Berrick says.
"But if the point of the system is to keep dangerous people from getting on airplanes, why would you leave some of the potentially most dangerous people off the list?" Kroft asks.
"Yeah, it's a concern. And I think if you talk with the Department of Homeland Security they would agree with that," Berrick says.
The Transportation Security Administration has been trying to fix some of these problems for the past three years with a program called "Secure Flight." It would take the job of screening passengers on the No Fly List away from the airlines and place it in the hands of TSA employees with the necessary security clearances.
"Secure Flight" would also make available more information on suspected terrorists so screeners could tell the difference between 14-year-old Susan Becker and a Bader Meinhof terrorist who uses the same name as an alias but is really named Susanne Albrecht. And between Robert Johnson the convict and the Robert Johnsons 60 Minutes interviewed in New York.
But Cathy Berrick says things are not going well. "So it's three years later and the program still isn't fielded," she says.
She says an estimated $144 million has been spent on Secure Flight. Asked what taxpayers got for their money, Berrick says "nothing tangible yet."
"If you look at the perfect world we're not there. But if the fundamental thing is to be able to say to the people who fly: 'Is the government letting people on my plane who they know is a terrorist, who, who is a bad guy?' And the answer is 'No,'" Kip Hawley says. "All of these other issues -particularly on convenience for people with the same name as terrorists, that is unfortunately where we are. That's the down side of it the upside is that two million passengers are not flying with a terrorist."
After Kroft's story aired, Kip Hawley told Congress he would review all 44,000 names and cut the list by half. Meanwhile, the FBI announced that Bolivian President Evo Morales and Lebanon's Nahbi Berri are not on the current list. As for Donna Bucella, she has left the FBI for a job in the private sector.
Produced By Ira Rosen
Copyright 2009 CBS. All rights reserved. "Well, Robert Johnson will never get off the list," Bucella states.
And she acknowledges that the inconvenience won't go away. "Well, they're gonna be inconvenienced every time they try to go to the kiosk or try to do a curbside check-in because they do have the name of a person who's a known or suspected terrorist," she says.
But not all suspected terrorists are on the government's No Fly List. Joe Trento, while researching his book "Unsafe at Any Altitude" about airline security found what he thought was an obvious omission.
"Now Dawud Sallahuddin, real name David Belfield, lives in Tehran. He carried out the first assassination in Washington on behalf of Ayatollah Khomeini. Dress up as a mailman and shot somebody. He's allowed to fly," Trento says.
And neither are the original eleven British suspects recently charged with plotting to blow up ten commercial airliners with liquid explosives, even though they had reportedly been under surveillance for more than a year. A subject that Kip Hawley, the director of the Transportation Security Administration wanted to avoid.
Asked if the suspects were they on the list, Hawley tells Kroft, "I'm not going to get into all of the investigation or related to that investigation except to say that. With absolute confidence that anyone turned up in that investigation would not be allowed to actually get on an aircraft."
"The British say these people have been under investigation, surveillance for more than a year. But we managed to get a copy of the No Fly List for March, and none of these people were on the list," Kroft states.
"Well, I'm not going to confirm is and who isn't," Hawley replies.
What Kip Hawley wouldn't tell 60 Minutes is that some of the some of most dangerous terrorists never even end up on the No Fly List, because the intelligence agencies that supply the names don't want them circulated to airport employees in foreign countries for fear that they could end up in the hands of the terrorists.
Cathy Berrick, the Director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues for the General Accounting Office told Kroft that the lists that the airlines get have been sanitized of the most sensitive information.
"They're not given all of the names for security reasons because the government doesn't want to have that information outside of the government," Berrick says.
"But if the point of the system is to keep dangerous people from getting on airplanes, why would you leave some of the potentially most dangerous people off the list?" Kroft asks.
"Yeah, it's a concern. And I think if you talk with the Department of Homeland Security they would agree with that," Berrick says.
The Transportation Security Administration has been trying to fix some of these problems for the past three years with a program called "Secure Flight." It would take the job of screening passengers on the No Fly List away from the airlines and place it in the hands of TSA employees with the necessary security clearances.
"Secure Flight" would also make available more information on suspected terrorists so screeners could tell the difference between 14-year-old Susan Becker and a Bader Meinhof terrorist who uses the same name as an alias but is really named Susanne Albrecht. And between Robert Johnson the convict and the Robert Johnsons 60 Minutes interviewed in New York.
But Cathy Berrick says things are not going well. "So it's three years later and the program still isn't fielded," she says.
She says an estimated $144 million has been spent on Secure Flight. Asked what taxpayers got for their money, Berrick says "nothing tangible yet."
"If you look at the perfect world we're not there. But if the fundamental thing is to be able to say to the people who fly: 'Is the government letting people on my plane who they know is a terrorist, who, who is a bad guy?' And the answer is 'No,'" Kip Hawley says. "All of these other issues -particularly on convenience for people with the same name as terrorists, that is unfortunately where we are. That's the down side of it the upside is that two million passengers are not flying with a terrorist."
After Kroft's story aired, Kip Hawley told Congress he would review all 44,000 names and cut the list by half. Meanwhile, the FBI announced that Bolivian President Evo Morales and Lebanon's Nahbi Berri are not on the current list. As for Donna Bucella, she has left the FBI for a job in the private sector.
Produced By Ira Rosen
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