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One-On-One: TSA Administrator Kip Hawley Preps His Final Initiatives (With Web-Only Excerpts).

Article Excerpt
Kip Hawley, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, spoke with BTN senior editor Jay Boehmer this month to discuss the state of transportation security, and the soon-to-be-implemented Secure Flight passenger prescreening system.

BTN: What needs to be done before Secure Flight can launch next year?

Kip Hawley: Secure Flight is within a couple of weeks of being announced with its final rule, so it is undergoing its final reviews within the administration. Then, the next step is to put it in the Federal Register, and it will give the road map from that point. We've had very good input from the people affected through the rule process. We know the concerns that people might have had, and when the rule comes out, those will be well addressed.

BTN: The revamped Secure Flight changes the role for airlines and travel agencies. Does the final rule address that?

Hawley: I can't comment on the final rule until it's final, but it does make it easier throughout the process. Certainly, for the airlines it will remove the burden of doing the work that they'd previously been doing. More importantly, it will virtually eliminate the problem of all those people who think they're on the watchlist or have to go up to get their boarding pass cleared. That whole issue should be virtually solved. All of us underestimated the number of people who were inconvenienced by the issues that existed with the airlines' matching system. That will be the biggest thing noticed by the public.

BTN: Should Secure Flight reduce false positives?

Hawley: We've found in the high 9s--99.99 percent--of the folks who have issues with watchlists are misidentified and in fact are not on the watchlist. Once we get Secure Flight up and running, virtually all of...

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