CAPPS 2 Back to the Drawing Board

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..."

Comments

Persistent data?

[Benanov]

Airlines, some facing lawsuits, have been caught up in the controversy because they provided passenger information for use in testing the screening system.

What about all the data they already have? What's going to happen to it? I doubt the U.S. government will throw that data out unless specifically ordered to, and even then they're going to throw more of a fit than a dozen 2-year-olds.

I've travelled and been green lighted by CAPPS I.

So CAPPS II is dead...but is my information still...

• in the database
• considered relevant?

voluntary system

[asreal]

to be honest, a voluntary system with no rules on what information can be collected scares me more than the all-knowing capps ii program. it puts in effect the same sort of discrimination and information gathering without any of the restrictions that would be in place in a legislated system. say 8 passengers give their information and two don't-- who do you think will get the cavity search?

Re:European data exchange?

[Anonymous Coward]

I already moderated this story - but what the heck - I have to respond here. You're not kidding about this: Airlines can't even book seats correctly 100% of the time - what are the chances that their data is going to be good quality 100% of the time? The last time I flew (earlier this summer) the trip had 2 flights each way. By the time we got from ATL -> Houston, 2 of us had apparently "never flown to houston" so continental was reluctant to let us on the plane.. Anyway, they finally let us on after showing them our Delta boarding passes. We flew to honolulu.

On the way back - when we went to check in - they'd sold our seats in honolulu (all but 1 of the 4 people traveling together) - because the other 3 had never been on the flights to honolulu (despite us having boarding passes scanned/torn at the gate/etc). The people at the continental counter would not believe that we had all flown there. Finally they let us on that plane - and when it came time to fly from houston to atlanta - the 3 people who had previously had problems, had none - and then the 1 person who hadn't had problems - got their seat sold - and had to argue to get it back). What a pain!

The fact that their computer systems showed that we weren't on the plane seriously makes me wonder what kink of useful data they can even give to the government. I mean, they didn't think we were on the plane - but at the same time they didn't remove our luggage. I thought that was a federal rule? Anyway...

Re:Dumb?

[TopShelf]

I thought that in preparation for an attack, the hijackers take the flight they intend to use several times, in order to observe the crew and map out the operation. It's tough to distinguish that kind of flight activity from a business consultant who makes the same sort of regular trips.

Re:Dumb?

[close_wait]

Aren't "frequent" flyers the ones we care the least about? I mean, if you are dead from hijacking a plane, you typically don't go on many more flights.

A well-funded terrorist will fly the route several times. A middle-eastern looking gentlemen who turns up in a suit doing the same journey he's been doing every 14 days for the last few months is likely to get waved through. ("Here for your meeting again, Mr Bin Laden? Have a good flight!")

As someone who was flagged in CAPPS I...

[velo_mike]

...how the hell do we fight this?

I'm a native born, US citizen, of (obvious) northern European ancestory. I have 2 degrees, an honorable discharge and have filed a tax return every year since I was 15 (that's 19 years if you're counting). I held a secret clearance for several years and have been bonded several times. I've had a couple speeding tickets, but never even been accused of any other misdemeanor, let alone a felony. In other words, my life has been documented by our government in quite substantial detail.

Despite this, every time I fly in the continental US I get searched. At the security screen where everybody else is passed through the x-ray and detector, my shoes are removed, I'm patted down, my hands and shoes are swabbed for explosive residue and my bags are rifled through. When I get to the gate and hand my ticket over, I get hauled off to the side, patted down again, and my bags re-searched. Every plane change, every pass through a gate or security station brings the same result. I have not boarded a flight in the US in the last 3 years without this happening. There is no appeal, there is no questioning why, there is only the choice to submit to this or not fly. My crime? Well, the only event I can come up with is I declared a firearm in my luggage after 9/11. A perfectly legal thing, I followed all the rules - demonstrated it was clear, locked the case, and placed it in the suitcase with the "steal me" tag.

It's embarassing, being dragged off to stand in the "special line" by myself. Mainly, I wonder what lowlife is getting through while they interogate me? Security personel are a finite resource, people have to be moved through at a reasonable clip or else flights are missed. When they spend 15 minutes with me, that's 15 minutes they could be investigating someone with bad intentions. Mistakes on credit reports can be researched, documented and appealed, usually successfully. This is unappealable, hell, nobody will even admit I've been flagged, it's "random".

Its all a power grab

[CFD339]

particularly the current flight security lines.

Lets face facts:

1. The 911 flights were brought down with box knives that did not go through security at all.

2. A box knife is no longer an effective way to hijack a plane. This is simply because a hijacked plane is no longer about a 3 day trip to Cuba. Now its about becomming a lawn dart. If you tried to hijack a plane prior to 911 with a knife, maybe we'd sit back and enjoy some cigars when we landed. Today, this firefighter and dozens of other people on the plane are going to shove the box cutter up your ass sideways. I'm not a kung-fu master by any means, but I am a 200 pound man in pretty good shape. Its a narrow plane. If I come running down the isle at you, you are going to fall down. I may get cut with a box cutter. So be it.

Now, making me wait 3 hours in line so you can take my nail clippers away isn't going to change anything at all. There are LOTS of ways we could still take stuff on planes (and if I can think of them, so can anyone else -- but I'd rather not broadcast them).

Tom Ridge and his ilk like to keep people scared because they get more power and funding that way. One way to keep people scared is to make them stand like cattle in long lines to give up deadly nail clippers.

Here's an idea, lets not vote for this administration this time either!

one of the ways CAPPS was supposed to work...

[ladyeyes]

I was doing research in a Senate office when this was a hot topic last summer. One of the things that was being looked at was having CAPPS check into the credit records of people to see things like: Do they have a long credit history in this country? Do they have a mortgage, car loan, student loans? These sorts of questions were supposed to help screen for people who had only been in the country for a very limited time and living in a more "limited" fashion.

There were, as you can imagine, an insane number of troubles and issues with this approach. And our office was one of the ones that screamed bloody murder over these issues.