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

build a database you mean...

[garcia]

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.

Re:build a database you mean...

[TopShelf]

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.

I may be off base here, but weren't a few of them wanted for various warrents? Such a system could conceivably allow authorities to make an arrest before they get on the plane. It would seem at least that checking passenger ID's against police and FBI wanted lists would make sense...

Re:build a database you mean...

[Qzukk]

Profiling Doesn't
Work.

Any system that decides to ignore people who don't fit its narrow world view is a FAILURE. If nobody cared about the guy with the british passport, would the flight have been saved? Would the arrests in Texas have been made if all the agents were out tailing Pakistanis or Iraqis?

As for CAPPS II, it had a whole host of problems rather than just collecting public data into a single place. Color coding was designed to be loose so that the person could move you up if you "looked" suspicious, or asked questions (in fact, IIRC, asking questions automatically escalated you). The database was not available for review or correction (the fact that our government insists on using bad data scares me more than anything else. But then again the whole Iraq mess proves that our government thrives on error). The list only goes on from there. That underpaid screener who just got laid off? They took your entire identity with them, and now have themselves a "raise". No auditing of usage of the data is almost as bad as the lack of review of the data.

Steak through the *head*?

[SpooForBrains]

Asked whether the program could be considered dead, Ridge jokingly gestured as if he were driving a stake through its head

Is that a common way of killing things? Effective, yes, but wouldn't it make more sense to go for the heart? Or have I been watching too much Buffy?

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?

At least they are thinking

[The0retical]

It is good to see that the US government is finally seeing that people do not want their right to privacy infringed upon. If they want to do something like the CAPPSII program it should be instituted voluntarily. Several airlines are already doing this and a rigorous background check to ensure the passengers are safe when they run them through an express check in. If anything US citizens should have their constitutional rights protected and if THEY should decide to give them up it was their decision for convenience of skipping the line.

Dumb?

[Hard_Code]

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.

"Roger, this passenger has taken 2000 flights in the last 10 years...you know...I have this suspicion he is UP TO SOMETHING!"

Live data?

[sczimme]

From the article:

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

Has no one there heard of 'dummy data'? Live data - particularly sensitive data - is a no-no in the testing environment. In many cases this is simply because the developers have absolutely no need-to-know; in other instances it is possible for live data to escape the test environment via generated reports, bug reports (e.g. SSNs ending in 4 cause $PROBLEM), etc.

European data exchange?

[angusr]

I wonder if this will have any effect on the planned (and contraversial, although little heard about in the mainstream press) data exchange from EU airlines to the US?

There does seem to be a fallacy going around in intelligence circles that all that is required for good security is as much data as can possibly be obtained - which of course isn't the case. What is required is good and timely analysis of relevant good quality data. 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?

Remember?

[Mishkin]

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.

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?

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!