More Background Checks for Aviation Workers

USA Today recently reported that background checks for aviation workers, once taken care of by the FAA, will now be conducted by TSA. The TSA terrorist watch list is larger than the FAA's and the checks will re-occur every time new names are added to the list. As an occasional airline passenger, I like the idea of increased safety.

Unfortunately, this has the potential for some significant side-effects. The TSA's list is already used to screen airline passengers. There is no way to confirm that practice has prevented a terrorist attack, but it has certainly inconvenienced a lot of innocent people. Some of those flagged by the system are only toddlers.

In the United States' current situation, Americans have to accept some false positives like this for the sake of overall security. The problem is: once an individual is flagged, it takes 45-60 days to plow through the government forms and red tape to get cleared to fly. It'd be a pretty raw deal if a new CFI, flight attendant or air traffic controler expected to start work when he or she got a new rating, but ended up having to wait two months to dispute a security restriction. Hopefully, the TSA will work out ways to make this process faster.