TSA Wants Access to Veterans’ Files to Add ‘Mental Defectives’ to Watch List

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TSA Wants Access to Veterans' Files to Add `Mental

Defectives' to Watch List

 

 

 

 

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TSA Wants Access to Veterans' Files to Add `Mental Defectives' to

Watch List - December 16th, 2005

 

CQ HOMELAND SECURITY – INTELLIGENCE

Dec. 9, 2005 – 8:57 p.m.

 

 

 

TSA Wants Access to Veterans' Files to Add `Mental Defectives' to

Watch List

By Jeff Stein, National Security Editor

 

Is there an efficient, legal way to keep crazy people off airplanes

altogether, like the manic depressive man shot dead at the Miami

airport last week?

 

As it turns out, the government was taking steps in that direction

almost a month before Rigoberto Alpizar was plugged by U.S. air

marshals after he ran down the Jetway with a bundle in his hands while

saying, according to the government, that he had a bomb.

 

A Nov. 15 notice put out by the Transportation Security Administration

(TSA), which is always thinking about new ways to keep potentially

dangerous people off our airliners, states TSA is looking for

contractors to add a number of new databases for screening passengers

and airport workers.

 

Up first are the files of the Defense Department (DoD) and Veterans

Administration (VA), which the TSA says it wants scoured for " mental

defectives. "

 

As if troubled veterans didn't have enough to worry about. According

to a 2004 Government Accountability Office (GAO) study, about 15

percent of the soldiers coming home from the intense guerrilla wars in

Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to be afflicted with what was once

called " combat fatigue. "

 

The New England Journal of Medicine also reported in 2004 that " 15.6

percent to 17.1 percent of returning soldiers from Iraq exhibited

signs of anxiety, major depression or other mental health problems. "

 

Today those symptoms are lumped together in what's called

post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, which afflicted hundreds of

thousands of soldiers who came home from Vietnam combat with " a

thousand-yard stare " and fell into depression, suicide, alcoholism and

drug abuse.

 

One of them might be sitting next to you on an airplane: More than

half, or 53 percent, of the 1 million combat veterans of Vietnam were

afflicted to one degree or another, said a four-year, $9 million study

published by the VA in 1990.

 

And the trend line for the new generation of veterans is going north.

The number who sought help for depression at VA clinics in 2004 grew

tenfold over the year before, according to the Los Angeles Times.

 

" In all, 23 percent of Iraq veterans treated at VA facilities have

been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, " it said. The VA

is struggling to keep up with services for the troubled veterans, GAO

said, thus exiling many to the streets, where they could be walking

time bombs.

 

Secret Codes

 

The military services used to put a secret code for " mental disorders "

on veterans' discharge papers until the practice was exposed and

banned in 1974. As it turned out, the numbers weren't secret at all to

potential employers and others who knew how to decipher them.

 

Maybe now they won't be secret to the airlines and the TSA, either.

 

But one puzzling aspect of the TSA's plan is that DoD and the VA may

not even have a classification for vets who are " mental defectives. "

 

A VA spokeswoman who has worked at the agency for 22 years said she

had never heard of such a category, but she didn't want her name used

until she could make a thorough inquiry.

 

DoD spokeswoman Lt. Col. Ellen G. Krenke flatly declared, " There is no

such category " in military records. But, she added by e-mail, " The

only area where information such as this may be contained is in the

section for standard separation program designator codes. However . .

.. this information is stamped `For Official Use Only' and will not be

furnished to any agency or individual outside the Department of Defense. "

 

David Addlestone, an Air Force judge advocate from 1966 to 1968 and

author of " The Rights of Veterans, " said that years ago the armed

services had a " personality disorder discharge " for people who

couldn't adjust to military life, but he said he wasn't sure it still

existed.

 

Yet the TSA notice, called a " sources sought " inquiry and first

reported by Government Security News, reads: " Examples of new data

sources would be DoD files for military service histories or VA files

for lists of persons who have been declared mental defectives. "

 

TSA spokesman Darrin Kayser did not have an immediate explanation for

the apparent contradiction late Friday but said he would look into it.

 

The prospect of a return of secret codes that could amount to a

blanket flight ban against troubled veterans upsets John Terzano, vice

president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.

 

If it's true, Terzano said, " This is a really, really shameful thing.

Veterans do get traumatized by war, of course. But for all their pain

and sacrifice, to have the government looking over their shoulder and

putting their names in a database is unconscionable. "

 

For TSA data-hunters, though, it's just the beginning.

 

" We plan to add two new data sources per year, " its notice said.

Backchannel Chatter

 

Speaking of watch lists, the FBI quietly announced via the Federal

Register on Dec. 2 that it was putting the Terrorist Screening Records

System beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act.

 

The " exemptions are necessary to avoid interference with the law

enforcement, intelligence, and counterterrorism functions and

responsibilities of the FBI and the Terrorist Screening Center, " the

Justice Department said in its " final " notice, a response to comments

invited from the public about the proposed rule. David Sobel, general

counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil

liberties advocate in Washington, said, " Most of [it] is devoted to

debunking the arguments we made in our comments. " . . . Elsewhere in

Justice, 493 terrorism-related cases were referred to the department

for prosecution from 2002 to 2004, 167 were prosecuted, and 95

convictions were won, according to numbers assembled from the

department by TRAC, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse,

also in Washington. Of those, 73 people were sentenced to prison for

an average of 38 months. The median term was 12 months, according to

the numbers . . . Just in time: a conference on " Intelligence and

Ethics, " at the Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics, Jan.

27-28. " It is the goal of this conference to establish the first

international meeting of civilian and military intelligence

professionals, educators and those with academic perspectives in

national security, philosophy, law, history, psychology, theology and

human rights, " an announcement said.

 

• Ethics & Intelligence 2006

 

Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein.

Source: CQ Homeland Security

© 2005 Congressional Quarterly Inc. .

http://www.cq.com/public/20051209_homeland.html