The U.S. government will soon take over the running of the controversial no-fly list from airlines, officials said Wednesday.
Transportation Security Administration chief Adm. David Stone told a House aviation panel his agency would roll out a program to "bring that (no-fly) list under the government umbrella so that we don't have a list of no-fly and selectees (distributed) worldwide (to) airlines."
Experts said there were numerous technical challenges to overcome and some expressed skepticism the agency would be able to move as quickly as Stone promised.
The two lists, which bear the names of thousands of known and suspected terrorists and others thought to pose a threat to aviation, are currently distributed to airlines to check against names of people booking flights.
But the system has been plagued by controversy because of the number of so-called "false positives" -- people with the same or similar names to those on the list. Most recently, two lawmakers said they had been repeatedly challenged by airline staff.
© Copyright 2004 by United Press International
