Chris Van Hollen: “Madam Chairman, let me start by commending Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member King and the Homeland Security Committee on…”

“Madam Chairman, let me start by commending Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member King and the Homeland Security Committee on a bipartisan basis for their good work on this piece of legislation. I have an amendment that I hope will be agreeable to all sides. In January of this year, the TSA launched a Web site. Some of you may have seen it. It was called the Traveler Verification Identification Program, and it was designed to allow those passengers who were wrongfully identified on the no-fly lists or the selectee lists the opportunity to start the process of getting their names removed from that list. The way you did that was you go and you log on to the TSA Web site and submit sensitive security information and personal information, like your Social Security number, the place and date of birth, your drivers license number and other personal identification numbers in order to demonstrate and prove to TSA that you were not a 'person of concern' on their list. That was an important step forward, a positive list. I think we have all heard the stories about individuals who were wrongfully placed on that list or whose identifications were mistaken for somebody else. So that was a good way to start to get people off the list. But right after the launch of that program, they had to shut it down.”