. ----- Forwarded message from Glen Motil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----- X-Envelope-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Glen Motil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> X-Spam-Level: Level X-MailScanner: PASSED (v1.2.7 20971 h2BFb8Sa032055 mailbox6.ucsd.edu) X-Sequence: 667 X-no-archive: yes List-Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> List-Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> List-Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> List-Owner: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> List-Archive: <http://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/ucsdpeace-disc> Subject: [ucsdpeace-disc] The New Airport Profiling
The New Airport Profiling March 11, 2003 Having successfully fielded thousands of newly minted federal agents to screen air travelers and their luggage, the Transportation Security Administration is now turning to a far more controversial endeavor. The agency is developing a sophisticated screening system designed to identify travelers who may pose a terrorist threat. It is a worthy goal - one ordered up by Congress - but the creation of a highly intrusive federal surveillance program raises serious privacy and due process concerns, which the government needs to address in a forthright manner. The notion of electronic profiling is not new. Using such criteria as whether a passenger paid cash for a ticket, a rudimentary system designed in the mid-1990's helped airlines flag passengers deserving heightened scrutiny. What that usually meant was that their checked luggage was carefully inspected. Some of the Sept. 11 hijackers were reported to have been picked out by that system, but it did little good since they did not check any bags. The new profiling system is a quantum leap. In addition to evaluating certain travel-related behavior and looking for passenger names on watch lists, the new system will give the transportation agency access to numerous public and private databases the moment a passenger books a flight. Exactly which ones has not yet been determined, but they may include the records of Department of Motor Vehicle offices, banks and credit-rating agencies. After the program is in place, which could be as early as the end of this year, the Transportation Security Administration will assign each passenger a risk level: green, yellow or red. Travelers will not be informed of their designations, which will be encrypted onto their boarding passes. The T.S.A. says it is mindful of the obvious privacy concerns raised by such a system, though it points out that it will not be amassing new databases, but rather mining ones already used routinely to profile consumers. The agency says it is not interested in knowing whether you bounced a check five years ago, or whether you have paid your parking tickets, but in authenticating your identity. Privacy principles are not necessarily sacrosanct, but this plan runs the risk of overreaching. For one thing, it could quickly lead to mistaken actions based on inaccurate information. More worrisome is the possibility that this system could grow into a runaway vacuum cleaner, sweeping up all manner of data that can then be misused by the government. Congress recently put the brakes on the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project, a dangerously uncontrolled program that was designed to track the activities of millions of Americans. Lawmakers must ensure that the transportation agency's profiling system does not become an all-purpose equivalent. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company Discussion List for the UCSD Campus Peace Coalition List Administrator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- End forwarded message ----- -- michael cardenas | lead software engineer, lindows.com hyperpoem.net | GNU/Linux software developer people.debian.org/~mbc | encrypted email preferred "Promote decentralization" - The Good Guys
