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CAPPS 2 Back to the Drawing Board

Posted by michael on from the holy-water-and-silver-weapons dept.

dagnabit writes "Just saw this over at MSNBC. Apparently Tom Ridge is revising CAPPS II due to the lawsuits and complaints from some Congresscritters As an alternative, the TSA is hoping frequent travellers will voluntarily give up their info..."

2 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. build a database you mean... by garcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From this article at Wired:

    "The Department of Homeland Security and the TSA feel very strongly we should not move forward on any program that in any way infringes on preserving our freedoms," Stone said. "That is first and foremost."

    Which really means, "we thought that people would just go along with us because we snuck every other piece of bullshit legislation through without notice but we were wrong."

    The system, as originally proposed, would require all passengers to provide extra information when booking a ticket -- information that airlines don't currently ask for, like addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth. The system would then check that information against databases of criminals and terrorists and assign each passenger a green, yellow or red score, according to perceived risk.
    Civil-liberties groups from the left and right have gained powerful allies on Capitol Hill by arguing the system is both too invasive and ineffective.

    Damn straight it's ineffective. The 9/11 terrorists were already in the country legally. What the hell good would this do? They were already flying planes. Would knowing their dates of birth and their addresses have helped? Nope.

    Privacy firebrand Bill Scannell, whose DontSpyOnUs website has targeted companies such as JetBlue and Delta Airlines for working with the TSA, welcomed news of changes to CAPPS II, but argued the TSA did not go far enough.

    "They should shut down this anti-democratic project and put it into a security system that works," Scannell said. "Instead of retooling, they should junk the entire system and improve physical security."

    No way! Improve physical security? You mean like stop worrying about having an algorithm figure stuff out and do it manually? That's work, no way! Plus, we wouldn't be able to create a large database of information on airline passengers that could be easily accessed by other agencies in the on-going fight to end freedom, errr I mean terrorism.

  2. Remember? by Mishkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    remember one the first things that Bush said after 9/11?

    We will not allow these terrorists to change our way of life.


    heh. right.