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Politics : Homeland Security -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Snowshoe who wrote (650)	11/27/2001 6:58:58 AM
From: Snowshoe	Respond to of 827

US Customs also targeting foreign airline arrival security... Tuesday November 27 4:52 AM ET Report: U.S. Warns Foreign Airlines of Search Delays dailynews.yahoo.com NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States has told 58 foreign airlines their passengers will be subject to extremely thorough and long searches on arrival unless the airlines provide information needed to spot possible terrorists, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Under a new aviation security law signed by President George Bush on Nov. 19, passengers on Saudi, Russian, Chinese and other foreign airlines will be subjected to the new measures starting Thursday, the paper said in its online edition. The Times reported that the commissioner of customs, Robert Bonner, told airlines last week that if they failed to comply customs inspectors would search ``all hand-carried and checked baggage on every flight arriving in the United States.'' Any delay in implementing the measure could put security at risk, the paper quoted him as saying. The searches could add hours to the clearance process for overseas travelers, the newspaper said. The letter was sent to 58 carriers, including Saudi Arabian Airlines, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Aeroflot and Air China, the New York Times said. Under the law airlines had two months to begin the electronic transmission of passenger lists for all flights to the United States, it said. The Customs Service said it had received very few responses, the newspaper said. A spokesman for the Jordanian airline said it would comply, while other carriers said they did not know much about the new requirement or were still studying it, it added. For more than a decade, federal officials have been asking airlines to participate in the system used to compare biographical data on international air travelers with lists of suspected terrorists and criminals, the newspaper said. Lists are compiled by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, it said. More than 90 carriers have already been supplying data on passengers, according the New York Times. Airlines gather the information at departure and send it to the Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service while the flight is on its way to the United Sates, it added. The Customs Service checks the names against several databases, including the Interagency Border Inspection System and files maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the newspaper said. Under the new aviation security law, airlines no longer have a choice. For each passenger and crew member, they must provide the full name, date of birth, citizenship, sex, the number of the passport and the country where it was issued, the visa number or green card number and ``such other information'' as American officials deem necessary to ensure air safety, the paper said. ``I don't know of any airline that could do this and chooses not to do so,'' said Wanda Warner, a spokeswoman for the International Air Transport Association, a trade group for the airline industry, according to the newspaper. Warner said some airlines might fail to meet the Customs Service deadline because they lacked the necessary equipment, it added.