Slashdot Mirror
CAPPS II Trials Begin in March
corporal_clegg writes "According to this story on FoxNews, in March Delta Airlines will begin using a federal database that incorporates credit history and bank records in an effort to identify potential security threats. The federal system - CAPPS II (Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System) - will assign a "threat level" to passengers based upon information in the database and other criteria, such as whether the individual is on government watch lists. 'CAPPS II will collect data and rate each passenger's risk potential according to a three-color system: green, yellow, red. When travelers check in, their names will be punched into the system and the boarding passes encrypted with the ranking.' The scary thing is that no one really knows which databases the government will use or how long the records will remain. Slashdot covered this story in September 2002, and it now seems that the first airline is ready to give it a try. In addition to the links in the previous Slashdot article, a good background on CAPPS II can be found here." Actually, the last story we did on passenger profiling was just a week or two ago.
CAPPS II will collect data and rate each passenger's risk potential
//begin code snippet
if(PassengerEthnicity()=='arab')
{
InitiateSearch();
SetThreatLevel(doom);
};
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
.... incorporates credit history and bank records in an effort to identify potential security threats.
Oh thats right....poor people are all terrorists.
Just remember if you bounce a check then the terrorists have already won.
ThunderBird. Nuff said.
A couple weeks ago, Congress decided that the Total Information Awareness program could not operate against US citizens.
Today? We are getting a "security" implementation that(purportedly) keeps the information it collects for 50 years. This has been disputed, by the Transportation Department, but it appeared in print, and the retraction was not.
Sad, sad.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
The scary thing about this is:
- We don't know what airports this is going to be run at.
- We don't know what databases are going to be used
- What if some of the information is erroneous? How can we correct our own "profile"?
- Lastly...what does my credit check have to do with whether or not I'm going to blow up a plane?
And then they wonder why almost every single airline in the United States is at or near bankruptcy.
"Killing America in the Name of Security"
If it were really about airline security, they would make a special strip search screening line. So you go through into a little room, they completely search you, not necessarily a strip search but completely search you and your carry on luggage, and let you go. Really, I don't think the government has any right to even know your name. You should be able to fly where ever you want, when ever you want, without being tracked. As long as you pass the security screening before you get onto the plane, what the fuck right does the government have to know anything else about you?
Don't they realize that anything that is publicized is now what a terrorist will most definately avoid? If they are looking for good credit and a history of large amounts of money moving through a bank account or vice versa, then a potential threat, i.e terrorist, will most definately change their habits to remain undetectible. These are not stupid people. If I know what steps an airline is taking to detect whether or not I am a threat, so does EVERYONE else. I know many of you will say that this information is made public so that I know what freedoms are being taken from me and I say that either scenerio is a bad idea. Leave my credit history and bank account information alone and find another way to detect terrorists without telling me how you are going to do it, just don't invade my privacy.
So we shall soon expect to see the less affluent citizens of this nation prohibited from travelling by airplane? There is simply no way in which the algorithm they use to determine risk could be flawless, and in such a matter, even one false-positive is too much. I always heard jurists refer to the slippery slope, and I had to wonder whether it was true. In the last five years og litigation, there have been an inconceivable number of unconstitutional or unjust laws proposed, and an even more amazing number of them have been passed. We shall finally see whether the slippery slope exists. I sincerely hope that we can return even a small measure of the freedom that this republic is supposed to represent, but I fear that it shall continue only to get worse.
I fear that things will degenerate so greatly, that nothing short of armed insurrection will return it to the path of its founders' intent. I fear that day, because if force becomes necessary, then it is already too late.
Pax Digitalia
We can keep the current system in place with searches and questions for (hopefully) the minority of travellers who would't have an id. If you can take the time to get a driver's license once every couple years, you can take the time to get a background check too.
"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
... how a phrase such as "such as whether the individual is on government watch lists" doesn't scare the hell out of every single person in the US.
Perhaps there's a reason public education sucks so badly besides governmental stupidity... perhaps it's governmental genious to get all these fucking idiots to think crap like this is actually good. To me it's absolutely astonishing that a lot of people think protesting should be outright illegal.. do they not comprehend what that means?! This kind of crap almost makes me want to cry, and thanks to the US's ability to influence most every other country with either wads of money or military power there is no escape... "Brave New World" wasn't a fictional book, it was a god damn prophecy.
This is just so damn scary... I've had a gun put to my head by a nervous wreck of a thief, and I am still more scared about our current political climate than I was about that...