6 Considered Threats Kept Licenses for Aviation

Published: June 25, 2009

WASHINGTON — At least six men suspected or convicted of crimes that threaten national security retained their federal aviation licenses, despite antiterrorism laws written after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that required license revocation. Among them was a Libyan sentenced to 27 years in prison by a Scottish court for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.

In response to questions from The New York Times, the Transportation Security Administration, which is supposed to root out such individuals, announced that the Federal Aviation Administration suspended the licenses on Thursday.

The two agencies appeared to be unaware that the men were among the nearly one million people licensed as pilots, mechanics and flight dispatchers. They were identified by a tiny family-owned company in Mineola, N.Y., demonstrating software it developed to scrub lists of bank customers for terrorism links.

The list also includes an Iranian-American convicted of trying to send jet fighter parts to Iran and a Lebanese citizen living near Detroit who was convicted of trying to provide military equipment to Hezbollah.

David M. Schiffer, president of the database company, Safe Banking Systems, said his list of terrorists or terrorism suspects was drawn entirely from public records. The F.A.A. records are also mostly public, although because of data entry and programming flaws, some information is inaccessible and other data is garbled.

In an interview, Mr. Schiffer paraphrased the sign now common on buses and trains in New York urging the public to be alert for terrorist activity: “We saw something, and we’re saying something.â€