110 HR 4179 IH: Fair, Accurate, Secure and Timely U.S. House of Representatives 2007-11-14 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.

I 110th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 4179 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES November 14, 2007 Ms. Clarke (for herself, Mr. Thompson of Mississippi, Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas, Mr. Perlmutter, Mr. Carney, Ms. Norton, Mr. Al Green of Texas, Mr. Pascrell, Mrs. Christensen, Mr. Cuellar, and Ms. Loretta Sanchez of California) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security A BILL To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to establish an appeal and redress process for individuals wrongly delayed or prohibited from boarding a flight, and for other purposes.

1.

Short title

This Act may be cited as the Fair, Accurate, Secure and Timely Redress Act of 2007 or the FAST Redress Act of 2007.

2.

Establishment of appeal and redress process for individuals wrongly delayed or prohibited from boarding a flight, or denied a right, benefit, or privilege

(a)

In general

Subtitle H of title VIII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 451 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following new section:

890A.

Appeal and redress process for passengers wrongly delayed or prohibited from boarding a flight

(a)

Establishment

The Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish a timely and fair process for individuals who believe they have been delayed or prohibited from boarding a commercial aircraft or denied a right, benefit, or privilege because they were wrongly identified as a threat under the regimes, including the Terrorist Screening Database, utilized by the Transportation Security Administration, United States Customs and Border Protection, or any other office or component of the Department of Homeland Security. (b)

Office of Appeals and Redress

(1)

Establishment

The Secretary shall establish in the Department an Office of Appeals and Redress to implement, coordinate, and execute the process established by the Secretary pursuant to subsection (a). The Office shall include representatives from the Transportation Security Administration, United States Customs and Border Protection, and such other offices and components of the Department as the Secretary determines appropriate. (2)

Comprehensive Cleared List

The process established by the Secretary pursuant to subsection (a) shall include the establishment of a method by which the Office, under the direction of the Secretary, will be able to maintain a comprehensive list of individuals who have been misidentified and have corrected erroneous information, to be known as the Comprehensive Cleared List. (3)

Information

To prevent repeated delays of a misidentified passenger or other individual denied a right, benefit, or privilege, the Office shall ensure that the Comprehensive Cleared List contains information determined by the Secretary to authenticate the identity of such a passenger or individual. (4)

Use of Comprehensive Cleared List

The Secretary shall— (A)transmit to the Transportation Security Administration, United States Customs and Border Protection, or any other appropriate office or component of the Department, other Federal, State, local, and Tribal entities, and domestic air carriers and foreign air carriers that use the Terrorist Screening Database the Comprehensive Cleared List and any other information the Secretary determines necessary to resolve misidentifications and improve the administration of the advanced passenger prescreening system and reduce the number of false positives; and (B)ensure that the Comprehensive Cleared List is taken into account by all appropriate offices or components of the Department when assessing the security risk of an individual. (5)

Intergovernmental efforts

The Secretary may— (A)enter into memoranda of understanding with other Federal agencies, as necessary, to improve appeal and redress processes; and (B)work with other Federal, State, local, and Tribal authorities that use the Terrorist Screening Database to ensure, to the greatest extent practicable, that the Comprehensive Cleared List is taken into account when assessing the security risk of an individual. (6)

Handling of personally identifiable information

The Secretary, in conjunction with the Chief Privacy Officer of the Department, shall— (A)require that Federal employees of the Department handling personally identifiable information of individuals (in this paragraph referred to as PII) complete mandatory privacy and security training prior to being authorized to handle PII; (B)ensure that the information maintained under this subsection is secured by encryption, one-way hashing, other data anonymization techniques, or such other equivalent technical security protections as the Secretary determines necessary; (C)limit the information collected from misidentified passengers or other individuals to the minimum amount necessary to resolve a redress request; (D)ensure that the information maintained under this subsection is shared or transferred via a secure data network that has been audited to ensure that the anti-hacking and other security related software functions properly and is updated as necessary; (E)ensure that any employee of the Department receiving the information maintained under this subsection handles such information in accordance with the section 552a of title 5, United States Code, and the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (Public Law 107–296); (F)only retain the information maintained under this subsection for as long as needed to assist the individual traveler in the redress process; and (G)conduct and publish a privacy impact assessment of the appeal and redress process established under section and transmit the assessment to the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives, the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate, and Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate. (7)

Initiation of redress process at airports

The Office shall establish at each airport at which the Department has a significant presence a process to provide information to air carrier passengers to begin the redress process established pursuant to subsection (a). (8)

Report to Congress

Not later than 240 days after the date of the enactment of this section, the Secretary shall submit to the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs of the Senate on a report on the status of information sharing among users at the Department of the Terrorist Screening Database. The report shall include the following information: (A)A description of processes and status of implementation of this section to share the Comprehensive Cleared List with all Department components and other Federal, State, local, and Tribal authorities that utilize the Terrorist Screening Database. (B)A description of the extent to which Department components other than the Transportation Security Administration are taking into account the Comprehensive Cleared List. (C)Data on the number of individuals who have successfully obtained redress through the Office of Appeals and Redress. (D)An assessment of what impact information sharing of the Comprehensive Cleared List has had on misidentifications of individuals who have successfully obtained redress through the Office of Appeals and Redress.

. (b)

Conforming amendment

Title 49, United States Code, is amended by striking section 44926 (and the item relating to such section in the analysis for chapter 449 of title 49). (c)

Clerical amendment

Section 1(b) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 101(b)) is amended by adding after the item relating to section 890 the following new item: 890A. Appeal and redress process for passengers wrongly delayed or prohibited from boarding a flight. .