Free Republic

Security Aide Prods Airlines to Yield Data on Travelers By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 ? Needing information on airline passengers for a test of the government's new computerized screening system, the Transportation Security Administration, rebuffed by JetBlue Airways, is looking for a substitute that can provide it, the agency's administrator said today. But the official, Adm. James M. Loy, said that because no one airline wanted to single itself out as the provider, he hoped to get the data from the industry as a whole. And if he cannot get the airlines' cooperation, he said, he will simply...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense contractor Lockheed-Martin will develop a new system to check background information and assign a threat level to all commercial air passengers, the Transportation Department announced.</p> <p>The company, which employed Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta in the mid-1990s, was awarded a five-year contract to administer the program. The first phase of the contract is worth $12.8 million, transportation officials said.</p>