ASHINGTON, July 28 (AP) - A crucial overseer of the
efforts to overhaul the screening of airline passengers resigned four
years ago from the New Hampshire Supreme Court to avoid prosecution over
his conduct on the bench.
The official, W. Stephen Thayer III, left the court in a deal with
prosecutors. He is now deputy chief of the Office of National Risk
Assessment at the Transportation Security Administration.
Mr. Thayer resurrected his career with work at a conservative group
here before moving to the risk assessment office, where he supervises the
Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System. The system had technical
problems and met resistance from privacy advocates. It was returned to its
planners this month for more work.
The project, Capps II, developed software to bar any passenger from
boarding a plane if a computer analysis of terrorist watch lists and
private commercial records judged him a security threat. Congressional
auditors have criticized the program.
The administration named Mr. Thayer to oversee the project last summer
with little fanfare. His fast-moving career - United States attorney at 35
and State Supreme Court justice at 40 -halted on March 31, 2000, when he
resigned in a deal with Attorney General Philip T. McLaughlin of New
Hampshire.
In return for the resignation, Mr. McLaughlin agreed to drop plans for
an indictment. In a report, Mr. McLaughlin criticized Mr. Thayer for
participating in deliberations on a case that he was recused from. Mr.
McLaughlin also said he would have sought felony or misdemeanor charges
against Mr. Thayer for reportedly trying to influence the choice of a
judge to hear his wife's appeal of their divorce and threatening fellow
justices if they allowed his conduct to be reported to oversight
groups.
"I committed no criminal act," Mr. Thayer said at the time.
Mr. McLaughlin had decided to seek the criminal indictment when Mr.
Thayer volunteered to resign.
A spokesman for the transportation authority, Mark O. Hatfield Jr.,
said Mr. Thayer was qualified for his post because he had helped the
American Conservative Union organize a panel with other conservative and
liberal groups to lobby on the handling of citizens' personal information,
including Capps II.
"That was as direct involvement in that field as you can get," Mr.
Hatfield said.
Mr. Thayer declined to be interviewed.
