So, apparently the reason the Times Square Bomber got on that airplane is that the airline in question had not updated its No Fly List after being notified by the US government. Now, the administration wants to institute a rule requiring them to do so within, I think, 24 hours.
Why can’t the airlines have one, centralized No Fly List that is automatically updated when the US government adds a new name? Is there some security risk? Seems like we should eliminate the extra steps if possible.
I believe that it may more difficult or expensive for foreign owned airlines to sync constantly with a foreign government. Even most banks only update thier databases once a day, thiers a lot of data out there. Although I can’t see arab owned airlines flying from New York to Dubai as being cash poor, the industry as a whole is struggeling.
Also, understand that between the time he bought his ticket and the time he got caught was much less than twenty four hours; so they did update rather quickly.
Would Saudi Arabia extradite him?
That’s not a particularly good analogy.
Banks update their databases every time you make a transaction. Don’t believe me? Go to your bank’s ATM and check the balance. Then take out $20 and check the balance again.
Some banks may not update their website databases only once a day… but that’s a far different animal than an OLTP (online transaction processing) database.
In addition, a bank potentially has millions of transactions a day from multiple sources (ATM, different branches, credit/debit card processors, check clearing house, etc.). How many people do you think the Federal Government adds to the No-Fly list every day? A hundred? A thousand?
Zev Steinhardt
He was flying to Dubai. But that really isn’t related to the question in the OP.
Come on, the most important function of a buraucracy is information hiding. Why can’t the FBI, CIA, NSA,… talk to each other?
I’m really interested in seeing the responses to this question, too.
One potential reason that I can think of, offhand, is a situation in which internet connectivity - or whatever means of accessing the central database is used - was unavailable. If the airlines were unable to connect to the central database to check whether or not a name appears on it, they would (theoretically) have to delay their flights until the connection was restored. OTOH, if they’re accessing a “local” database, this issue may be less likely to occur, and may take less time to correct in the event that it does.
One way to address this concern is to maintain a local database which periodically syncs with the central database… but that’s essentially the status quo. I would bet that this process of syncing could be vastly improved (e.g., it wouldn’t surprise me if some airlines manually perform this syncing, rather than have it carried out by some automated task).
Another reason against one single database is that it makes it easier to corrupt. If I can get one person on or off a single database or bring that database down the whole system fails. This way only part of it fails at a time.
Then of course you can synch the database at various times and make sure it has not been corrupted for whatever reason, legit or not
A strong argument against a centralized database is that someone needs to develop and deploy such a system first.
That is to say, I suspect that the reason that there isn’t such a thing is because no one has gotten around to doing it.