TSA: Flight Insecurity and "SecureFlight" (CAPPS II)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Richard Forno <rforno () infowarrior org>
Date: October 26, 2004 12:05:55 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: TSA: Flight Insecurity and "SecureFlight" (CAPPS II)

(cc'd from my mailing list)

Conspiracy theories aside, this article at TomPaine.Com raises 
legitimate
questions over the effectiveness and managerial wisdom regarding many
post-0911 security "enhancements" in the country, and exactly how much 
trust
should be placed in these new organizations with limited or nonexistent
accountability controls for their actions.

The excessive layers of secrecy in the 'homeland security" area only
acerbates the problem and prevents citizens from both knowing, and then
hopefully trusting, these newly-established organs of state security. In
addition, failing to provide recourse for citizens wronged by these new
security programs when launching them only reinforces the perception, 
real
or otherwise, that the citizenry really doesn't matter much when 
developing
the mechanisms of "homeland security."

Based on what I've seen thus far, I suspect that much of what is done 
under
the reassuring name of "Homeland Security" would be better (and more
accurately) characterized in reality as  "faith-based security."

Thoughts?  I'll repost them in aggregate if there are enough of them.

-rick
Infowarrior.org

> From TomPaine.Com (http://www.tompaine.com/print/flight_insecurity.php)

The Transportation Security Administration’s “new” Secure Flight program
would employ most of the elements of CAPPS II that generated heated
opposition from privacy watchdogs—but repackaged with a slicker name 
while
citizens' attention is distracted by the imminent elections. The
concept—gathering and computer analyzing information about every 
traveler in
an attempt to identify “dangerous” people—is unchanged from CAPPS II. 
The
same fundamental problem also remains: attempting to sort citizens 
based on
their alleged potential for violence merely distracts from creating 
sound
security infrastructure.

< snip >

So what’s your recourse if you’re wrongly tagged? Incredibly, the TSA is
exempting itself from federal law that would guarantee our right to 
know why
if our name appears on a watch list. And after secretly obtaining 
millions
of passenger records from airlines and deceiving the public about it, 
TSA
officials say we should trust them to create an appeal process later.

Meanwhile, the Bush Justice Department is ever more secretive about the
issue. In September, the Department refused in federal court to either
confirm or deny the existence of a law requiring that airline passengers
show identification upon check-in. So the government has airlines 
enforcing
a law that may or may not exist—a bit like the Fourth Amendment under 
John
Ashcroft’s reign as attorney general.


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