Homeland Security Tracks Information of Travelers

feuerfalke writes "Homeland Security recently disclosed a plan regarding an Automated Targeting System, or ATS, that would generate a 'terrorist risk rating' based on information collected about the traveler. This information would include things such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and the meals they ordered in-flight. These ratings have now been assigned to millions of international travelers, including Americans, and the ATS is exempt from many provisions of the Privacy Act — one cannot view their rating or the information used to generate it."

Comments

Lies my teacher told me

[yourpusher]

I spent a good part of my childhood just a few miles away from the lucky side of the Iron Curtain. One of the things that our teachers told us was so bad about East Germany was the fact that they "kept files on their citizens! Normal people, like you and me!"

So what do we tell the kids, today?

Since we all know that you MUST be a terrorist if:

[Avillia]

*You took a one-way trip to assist in disaster aid in New Orleans or Thailand in the last two years, not knowing when you would be comfortable with/forced to leave the area.
*You enjoy food from the Middle East (they probably have a Middle-Eastern mid-flight meal SOMEWHERE) after trying some at a small suburban restaraunt near your Pakistani coworker.
*You paid in cash, since you recently went bankrupt and are moving somewhere that has a lower cost of living.
*You refused to show your ID in the airport a few months ago because you packed your wallet in your checked bag by accident (Happened to me, it's tons of fun).
*You checked out a book on Islamic extremism for your Current Issues class, for a Debate on the issue, or other such academia.

It's good to know our previous Congress was too busy pissing themselves post-911 to have a clear enough mind to see how freaking WRONG the Patriot Act was, and then kept being embarassed by the stain enough to extend it's duration.

Re:It's True

[Chaffar]

It just means that if you're an 18-25 year old male from any country that ends with -stan and you ordered your meal to be halal then you're flagged as potential terrorist. It's as simple as that.

Re:So if you're flagged ...

[0123456]

"I can envision a lot of people deciding they don't really wish to fly to the US anymore."

Welcome to several years ago: a heck of lot of people have already decided they don't want to visit America anymore.

I used to travel to America regularly before 9/11, but I've only been there twice since and both of those were short stops between planes when flying to and from Canada. Why go to a country that will treat me like crap at immigration, then potentially kidnap me and ship me to Cuba if some computer tells them I might be a terrist?

Re:Take your pill and swallow it

[NineNine]

The scary thing is that half of the people in this country would seriously agree with you 100%.

Where to begin?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

It's not a national security program:
>Government officials could not say whether ATS has apprehended any terrorists.

It can't work because of the base rate fallacy. At any false alarm rate known to man, the output will be statistically indistiguishable from 100% false alarms.

All these problems are aggravated by the fact that they won't correct errors:
>Nor can they see the records "for the purpose of contesting the content."

It's not to keep airplanes safe, it's a general control tool:
>ATS data about an individual may be shared with state, local and foreign governments for use in hiring decisions and in granting licenses, security clearances, contracts or other benefits.

How can anyone think profiling works?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

First there's the games theory problem. Stop everyone from Saudi Arabia from boarding airplanes, and the killers will put locally recruited types like John Walker Lindh onto airplanes.

Second, nobody has a monopoly on killing innocent people. From Salon's Patrick Smith, via Bruce Schneier's blog:

        * In 1985, Air India Flight 182 was blown up over the Atlantic by:

            a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
            b. Bill O'Reilly
            c. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir
            d. Indian Sikh extremists, in retaliation for the Indian Army's attack on the Golden Temple shrine in Amritsar

        * In 1986, who attempted to smuggle three pounds of explosives onto an El Al jetliner bound from London to Tel Aviv?

            a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
            b. Michael Smerconish
            c. Bob Mould
            d. A pregnant Irishwoman named Anne Murphy

        * In 1962, in the first-ever successful sabotage of a commercial jet, a Continental Airlines 707 was blown up with dynamite over Missouri by:

            a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
            b. Ann Coulter
            c. Henry Rollins
            d. Thomas Doty, a 34-year-old American passenger, as part of an insurance scam

        * In 1994, who nearly succeeding in skyjacking a DC-10 and crashing it into the Federal Express Corp. headquarters?

            a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
            b. Michelle Malkin
            c. Charlie Rose
            d. Auburn Calloway, an off-duty FedEx employee and resident of Memphis, Tenn.

        * In 1974, who stormed a Delta Air Lines DC-9 at Baltimore-Washington Airport, intending to crash it into the White House, and shot both pilots?

            a. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
            b. Joe Scarborough
            c. Spalding Gray
            d. Samuel Byck, an unemployed tire salesman from Philadelphia

Re:How can anyone think profiling works?

[RsG]

And this shows the effectiveness of profiling how exactly? I'm sorta lost how looking for a muslim male, age 17-40, would have helped in her case. Yes, the responsible party was muslim, but what we're talking about here is the effectiveness of profiling systems, and in such a case as this, they would have failed utterly.

Remember, the GP said nothing of the root causes in each case. He merely said who was carrying the bombs - because that's who airport security is trying to catch. Your point is no refutation of his.

Re:How can anyone think profiling works?

[Total_Wimp]

You are awesome.

In addition to the air sabotage you mentioned, one of the most feared terrorist organizations in the eighties and nineties was the IRA. True, they weren't feared much by us because they didn't strike at us, but neither did the PLO.

Of those that did strike at us, we probably had the most fear about very loosely connected "patriots" in our country that belonged to groups that often called themselves "militias". Of these groups and, others vaguely related, various law enforcement agencies often confiscated positively scary quantities of guns and ammo. These groups largely peaked around the time of the destruction of the federal building in Oklahoma City, which Timothy McVeigh stated was done because of his sympathy, if not actual participation, with these groups.

I think Timmy, the members of the various "militias" and the members of the IRA would be very unlikely to be swept up in the "Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40" category. In fact, plain ol' white folk in our country have a surprisingly high propensity to get caught up in emotional issues that then lead to them feeling they need to destroy something. The KKK, for example, has largely stuck to acts of terror on individuals, but has not been against firebombing a school building or such here and there. Anti-abortion activists have found both non-lethal and murderous ways to terrorize abortion clinics and doctors.
Once again, these haven't been on planes, but does it make them any less lethal or scary? Does that fact that these things were done by largely white Westerners mean it's not actual terror? Maybe it's just that since we understand (note: understanding does notj equal agreement) many of the reasons behind these acts, they don't instill the same sense of terror in us as mostly nameless, faceless terrorist fighting for something or other in the Middle East.
People need to remember to ask themselves what might be coming from their right if they place all their attention on their left. We need to look both ways when crossing this street. Terrorists are all over the place. If you check every guy with brown skin and a beard, you're likely to find out the hard way that your very white, nice, clean cut neighbor is the one that's really upset about [insert cause here] and thinks a few hundred people need to die to show the world just how mad he really is.

If you want a war on Islamic Fundimentalists, then at least have the balls to say it. If you want a "war on terror", then my friend, terror starts at home.

TW

Re:So if you're flagged ...

[gstoddart]

Welcome to several years ago: a heck of lot of people have already decided they don't want to visit America anymore.

Well, it's definitely building over time, there's no denying that.

I used to travel to America regularly before 9/11, but I've only been there twice since and both of those were short stops between planes when flying to and from Canada.

But, even that is getting kind of scary. I seem to recall that some time last year, Gonzales issued a legal opinion that says that they can arrest and detain anyone they see fit, and short of torture (which they defined in terms or organ failure and death) they could do anything they wanted to you.

It sounds very much like just taking a connecting flight through the US could allow you to end up in custody, declared as an illegal combatant, and locked away. I just simply don't trust people who grant themselves that much power and remove all transparency. I realize it's unlikely, it's just eerie to know they believe that they can do anything they want. Especially if other countries did the same, the US would freak out that their citizens can't go around unfettered.

Cheers

why profiling Muslims won't work

[kevintron]

Every time a story comes up on this topic I see a few people saying we ought to start profiling Muslims, and the only reason we aren't doing it is political correctness. There's a huge flaw in that theory: The obvious and easily profiled Muslims are the openly pious ones who are most likely to be peaceful and least likely to carry out any terrorist attack.

The real extremists, the ones who are willing to commit terrorism, are more likely to believe their religion allows them to pretend to be something else in order to defeat their enemies. They may not want to wear Western clothing, shave their beards, dye their skin pale white, take on Anglo-American names, forego their daily prayers, or eat pork rib platters for dinner, but extremists will do all of those things and more if it gives them a chance to strike at their perceived enemies. This is why ethnic profiling would be ineffective at best, and any feelings of safety it might create would be utterly false.

The refusal to openly endorse profiling of Muslims and Middle Eastern people in general is one of the things our government is actually doing right. Most of the people in these categories are not enemies of civilization. It would be a huge strategic mistake to treat all of them as if they were.

Re:Muslims hijacked more planes than your examples

[mojodamm]

1927 the deadliest mass murder in US school history was perpetrated by?

A. Tom Cruise?
B. Beetle Bailey?
C. Muslim extremists?
D. A white male?

In 1955 United Airlines Flight 629 was blown up by?

A. Oprah Winfrey?
B. The Riddler?
C. Muslim extremists?
D. A white male?

In 1996 the record-breaking Port Arthur Massacre was commited by?

A. Carlos Mencia?
B. Dragons?
C. Muslim extremists?
D. A white male?

The Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City was blown up by?

A. Dale Earnhardt?
B. Ghandi?
C. Muslim extremists?
D. A white male?

The deadliest attack on children in UK history, the Dunblane Massacre, was committed by?

A. Roy Rogers?
B. KISS?
C. Muslim extremists?
D. A white male?


On 9/11, Muslim male extremists successfully hijacked four planes, and successfully crashed three of them into their intended targets. Your five examples of non-Muslim events have only two planes going down, one of them 21 years ago, the other one 44 years ago. And only the one 44 years ago was in the US.

So, is your point that Muslims make more successful terrorists, or what? Or that terrorism by Muslims is a more recent trend? Not sure what point you're trying to make by asking for more 'recent' examples. Just because it happened outside of your attention span doesn't make it any less pertinent.

So, can we PLEASE drop the racial/religious profiling, and just focus on the individuals involved, instead of blindly regurgitating hateful propoganda? Thanks.