[privacy] AP: Feds Rate Travelers for Terrorism

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061201/D8LNR7R81.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - Without notifying the public, federal agents for the past
four years have assigned millions of international travelers, including
Americans, computer-generated scores rating the risk they pose of being
terrorists or criminals. 


The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk
assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years. 


The scores are assigned to people entering and leaving the United States
after computers assess their travel records, including where they are from,
how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel,
seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered. 


The program's existence was quietly disclosed earlier in November when the
government put an announcement detailing the Automated Targeting System, or
ATS, for the first time in the Federal Register, a fine-print compendium of
federal rules. Privacy and civil liberties lawyers, congressional aides and
even law enforcement officers said they thought this system had been applied
only to cargo. 


The Homeland Security Department notice called its program "one of the most
advanced targeting systems in the world." The department said the nation's
ability to spot criminals and other security threats "would be critically
impaired without access to this data." 


Still, privacy advocates view ATS with alarm. "It's probably the most
invasive system the government has yet deployed in terms of the number of
people affected," David Sobel, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a civil liberties group devoted to electronic data issues, said
in an interview. 


Government officials could not say whether ATS has apprehended any
terrorists. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Bill Anthony said agents
refuse entry to about 45 foreign criminals every day based on all the
information they have. He could not say how many were spotted by ATS. 


... 


On the Net: 


DHS privacy impact statement:
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_pia_cbp_ats.pdf 


 

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