DHS Passenger Scoring Almost Certainly Illegal

Vicissidude writes "At the National Targeting Center, the Automated Targeting System program harvests up to 50 fields of passenger data from international flights, including names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers, and uses watchlists, criminal databases and other government systems to assign risk scores to every passenger. When passengers deplane, Customs and Border Protection personnel then target the high scorers for extra screening. Data and the scores can be kept for 40 years, shared widely, and be used in hiring decisions. Travelers may neither see nor contest their scores. The ATS program appears to fly in the face of legal requirements Congress has placed in the Homeland Security appropriations bills for the last three years." From the article: "Marc Rotenberg, the director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said he was unaware of the language but that it clearly applies to the Automated Targeting System, not just Secure Flight, the delayed successor to CAPPS II. 'Bingo, that's it -- the program is unlawful,' Rotenberg said. 'I think 514(e) stands apart logically (from the other provisions) and 514 says the restrictions apply to any 'other follow-on or successor passenger prescreening program'. It would be very hard to argue that ATS as applied to travelers is not of the kind contemplated (by the lawmakers).'"

Comments

Will congress simply legalize it?

[gvc]

I hope that the new Congress will put its foot down on yet another intrusion into American personal liberty. The old one -- even the Democratic members -- did not.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[plopez]

Not to worry. Even if congress does act all the president has to do is issue yet another signing statement.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[nels_tomlinson]

I hope that the new Congress will put its foot down on yet another intrusion into American personal liberty. The old one -- even the Democratic members -- did not.

Meet the new congress ... same as the old congress.

The last part of your complaint really puts things in perspective, doesn't it? I could have voted for a republican candidate if he had been willing to shrink the powers of our government. I could have voted for a democrat who was willing to do that. Sadly, I've never seen a serious candidate for national office (except Ron Paul) who could plausibly claim that he was willing to reduce federal power in any practical way.

I hope that over the next two years, we will all learn that, just as voting republican in 2000 didn't solve our problems with government, voting democrat in 2006 and 2008 won't either. I wish that we had a viable alternative, but I'm afraid that we won't see one until after we all see that we need one.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[Hijacked Public]

While I'm sure that this particular set of power hungry control freak millionaires will prefer a type of intrusion different from that of the previous set of power hungry control freak millionaires, why look a gift horse in the mouth?

The previous set did most of the dirty work, all that talk about frogmen plotting to poison our water supplies or how some guy somewhere might be thinking about trying to blow up or otherwise damage or hijack an aircraft using maybe a gel or liquid possibly concealed in some everyday container like a toothpaste tube or shaving cream or water bottle. Continuously thinking up increasingly frightening scenarios of how terrorists could bring us harm is tough work, especially if you have to do it one handed because your other hand is busying stuffing cash in your pockets as fast as possible before someone else gets it.

So these guys will probably be content to just pile on yet more intrusion into our lives wihtout pruning any of the old, because you never know when some little tidbit of information you've collected might prove useful.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[kimvette]

Yes. After all, only terrorists brush their teeth or drink H2O.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to stop all this security nonsense and just let people be. It would probably only cost us 1 or 2 hijackings and maybe a couple planes into a couple buildings every 6 months or a year or so. We can live with that, eh?

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[gvc]

They need to stop all this security nonsense and just let people be. It would probably only cost us 1 or 2 hijackings and maybe a couple planes into a couple buildings every 6 months or a year or so. We can live with that, eh?

Dripping sarcasm notwithstanding, there's a fundamental point here. Can the intrusions in liberty be justified by reduced risk of hijackings or whatever? Or, perhaps, do they increase the risk? Some evidence would be apropos.

Suppose that the numbers above were true. The toll in deaths and ruined lives would still be lower than, say, the carnage on the highways. An orthogonal issue? I don't think so. Just think of what you could do with the billions of dollars wasted on building the police state. Highway safety is not even the most effective use to which these dollars could be put, but its orders of magnitude better than whatever DHS does with it.

But don't let my digression distract you from the fundamental point: there is not one iota of evidence that wiretaps, no-fly lists, torture, profiling, etc. make us safer. There is plenty of evidence that they directly diminish our quality of life, and indirectly divert our resources from more worthy pursuits.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[Idbar]

As long as you can reduce the public embarrassment of people in these cases. I'll go for it.

Probably the ultimate solution will be, drug or sedate travelers so they are not allowed to do anything while in the plane (flatulence included).

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[CaffeinieBaby]

> They need to stop all this security nonsense and just let people be. It would probably only cost us
> 1 or 2 hijackings and maybe a couple planes into a couple buildings every 6 months or a year or so.
> We can live with that, eh?

Free. Safe. Choose one.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[gvc]

Google for "false dichotomy."

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The powers of your government have been shrunk to one man - The Decider, remember - he decides whether you are allowed to continue your true function as Consumer or whether you will be Disappeared.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[mOdQuArK!]

Demonstrate that it's not false by proposing some more accurate alternatives.

As far as I can tell, this particular choice is not a false dichotomy
although the GP has written it as a binary choice instead of a matter of degree.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[mjhacker]

Offtopic, but... Libertarians would be much more likely to legalize things like marijuana than Democrats. Am I right here?

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[Guppy06]

"The old one -- even the Democratic members -- did not."

And what planet do you live on?

With our wonderful 90%+ incumbency rate in federal and state elections (more likely to be indicted and "retire to spend more time with family" than to actually lose an election), this is the old Congress!

I mean, in 1994, there was a net change of 54 seats out of 435, slightly more than 10%, and they called that a "revolution." So what will we call this shift of ~30 seats, a "civil war?" Perhaps a "military coup?" And the irony is that it would take a true revolution to actually unseat 50%+1 of the members of the House, even though they're supposedly contested every other year.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

It seems to me that terrorism is a bit like the child who constantly screams for attention. Sometimes it's best to let it be and don't give it any encouragement. If we leave terrorism alone (relatively), I reckon it'll become harder and harder to find people to hate the western world enough to attack civilians. If we pay too much attention, it gives them the impression that they are making a difference, and the negative nature of this attention gives them reason to believe themselves justified.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[morcheeba]

I know you're trolling, but taxes do no concern me nearly as much as government spending. Taxes are a matter of when you pay, spending is how much you pay. Compare republican vs democrat spending.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[kpharmer]

> The old one -- even the Democratic members -- did not.

Note that much of the support for the erosion of our personal liberties occured while this country was in a patriotic & fearful frenzy. Anyone in congress that took a moment to say, "um, could we talk about this for a minute?" was attacked by:
    - president bush & his administration
    - senate & house leaders
    - media pundits
    - etc
    - about 50 million americans
    - right wing talk radio & tv (fox news)
All of which was enabled by most mainstream news media. Everyone was so interested in "working together" that they allowed the administration and their colleagues to manipulate everyone to pass this crap.

So, yeah many Democrats supported these intrusive policies, bills, etc. But often only because to attempt a sane action would have been the equivilent of spitting in the wind - and killed their chances to survive the next election - and eventually reverse this crap.

Remember the first invasion of iraq? When a large number of democrats pushed back? The Republicans often remind Democrats of how almost every one of those Democrats that pushed to avoid war lost their next elections. So, this time around the Democrats played it safe. Unfotunately, as much as I wish it wasn't true, that was probably the best policy for a minority party without house, senate or administration.

Of course, they could also have been doing it because they wanted government control or somehow benefitted from supporting it. But I think these latter reasons were the lesser.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[DavidTC]

No, not armed with guns. A shootout is just a dangerous idea, and random people will get hurt. People aren't going to be able to sneak guns on the plane, so you don't need guns to fight them.

You know those pressure masks that drop down? Well, put a manual switch on them that the staff and pilots can flip(I think they already can), and stick a knife in every one of those. (Obviously in a sheath.)

Someone hijacks the plane? Tada, everyone immediately get a knife. (And there are now pressure masks flopping around, too.) Try keeping four or five people at knife point while you hold off fifty others with knifes.

Of course, the concept is silly. You can't hijack planes anymore and fly them into anything.

In fact, you probably couldn't hijack a plane and order the pilot to fly to Cuba. You'd have to explain the concept really quickly to keep everyone from killing you, and reassure them that the original pilot is still flying and not going to crash the plane. This is kinda sad, because hijacking a plane was one of the few hostage-taking incidents that actually usually ended well, with the passengers returning safely home. Then terrorists go and screw it up.

Of course, I'm actually of the opinion that, whenever anyone takes a hostage, we should kill them. Immediately, without hesitation. Yeah, a lot of hostages would die, but if society as a whole stopped negotiating with hostage takers, after a few years, no one would ever be taken hostage again.

We could even impliment a 'grace period'. If someone ends up taking over a place with people, and immediately lets all the people go the second the police or anyone shows up, we let them have a free hour to do whatever they want, as if they had hostages. Whereas if they keep them, we just ignore the hostages and walk in.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[Vicissidude]

There really is only one choice there. If you choose safety instead of freedom, then you lose both as the government quickly spirals into a police state.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[CreatureComfort]

Before you hope that people learn their lesson, why can't you hope that voting democrat might solve your problems?
Umm.... because it never has before? Just like voting Republican never has before. Einstein's definition of insanity applies here. If you keep doing exactly the same thing, and keep expecting different results, that's insane. For people who really want change to occur, the only hope is to do something different. Vote for the candidate that actually comes closest to representing your views, not for the one you think most electable that you can barely stomach over the other guy. I don't care if you vote Libertarian, Green, or whatever, but until enough people are sick enough of the existing regime to actually vote for something different, you wont see any changes.

People will respond with but.. but.. but.. throw away your vote... blah, blah, blah. The thing is, it is a chicken and egg problem. If you never take a stand for what you want to have happen, it will never happen. Yes, you may take your stand and lose, over and over again, but at the end of the day you know what? I can feel good about the choices I made. Most of my candidates over the years have lost, some have won, and every one of those has a voting record, so far, that I can agree with. In the last presidential election, I knew that I couldn't stand Bush. I knew that Kerry would do things that I would abhor. I knew that one of them was going to be in charge for the following four years. But I also knew that I would have a comfortable conscience, having voted for the person I thought would do the best job. And, If the person I voted for actually by some miracle won, I knew that I could look forward to things actually improving. If they didn't then I could at least say, in good conscience, that I had still done my best. How many people who voted Bush in actually agreed with most of the things he was promising to do and are happy and proud about it today? How many people who voted for Kerry, actually agreed with what he was promising to do, and would have been happy and proud with the results if he had won. Don't give me, "Well it would have been better than this." No! It still would have sucked to have Kerry extend the DCMA (a Clinton Era law). And if you think that Kerry would have been less of a **AA shill than Clinton was, you are sadly mistaken.

Get out and vote people, but vote for who you believe in. Not which new bum can throw the old bum out.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[E 99]

Can the intrusions in liberty be justified by reduced risk of hijackings or whatever?

I'm still stuck on the question of if an airline turns information we have already given them into a security risk score, can that act be justifiably called "an intrusion in liberty"? I am disinclined to agree that it can.

Re:Will congress simply legalize it?

[crystalattice]

The thing people tend to forget is that the only wasted vote is the one not cast. By voting third party, you aren't wasting your vote. You're telling everyone that you don't agree with the status quo and you want something different.

People should realize that, Republican or Democrat, whoever's in power likes to keep things the same (for the most part). The government will get involved in things they shouldn't be (Waco, Ruby Ridge, copyright infringement, etc.), the officials won't make significant campaign reforms because it hurts their pocket book, and so on. Just look at history; the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Denies rights based on secret laws

[Anonymous Coward]

This passenger scoring thing denies rights based on a secret law. Making it impossible for a citizen to know what actions may result in the loss of these rights. A perfectly law abiding citizen who happens to dress a certain way and prefer a certain food (all in compliance with law) can get denied the ability to fly, whereas as people who have served time for multiple felonies are allowed on planes (not that they shouldn't be allowed either).

WTF.

Re:Denies rights based on secret laws

[DrVomact]

So? Where do you think you live, America? This is The Homeland, buddy--the place that just repealed habeas corpus by an overwhelming majority vote comprised of both political parties. Stop your whining and show me your papers, Mr Anonymous. Now!

Re:Denies rights based on secret laws

[B.D.Mills]

This passenger scoring thing denies rights based on a secret law.

This bit scares me the most. It is a common principle in law that ignorance of the law is not a defense against breaking that law. However, such a principle is founded on the assumption that the people can find out what the law is. When a state has secret laws, this is no longer possible. So we have a situation where citizens may break a secret law and have no plausible way to determine for themselves what they need to do to stay on the right side of the law, yet citizens who are charged with breaking such laws may not be able to use ignorance of the law as a defense in a court of law.

Somehow I find that rather scary.

Re:Denies rights based on secret laws

[DavidTC]

yet citizens who are charged with breaking such laws may not be able to use ignorance of the law as a defense in a court of law.

charged with breaking a law? What are you, some sort of hippy? we don't charge people with crimes anymore.

Seriously, though, this isn't a 'law'. It is a Decision made by the Decider and people who work for him, which will result in them doing things to you. Specifically in this case, barring you from airline travel. It is like all his other Decisions, like detaining people without a trial and spying on whatever conversations he wants.

'Laws' involve the executive and judicial branch, too. This has nothing to do with 'laws'. Almost none of Bush's behavior is even vaguely related to 'laws'.

As such, this article headline is rather...crazy. Yes, this happens to be against what appears to be an explicit law barring it. However, it wouldn't be legal for the executive branch to randomly remove, without trial, the ability to use airplanes without a law banning it. It wouldn't even be legal with a law saying they can do that! The executive branch cannot punish behavior or decide guilt, only the courts can do that!

This is like asserting Gitmo is illegal under kidnapping and assault laws. Well, in a technical sense, yes, but it's illegal for so many other reasons, like, oh, various things in the Bill of Rights, that applying that law is rather absurd. It's not 'illegal' if the entire process is 'extralegal', completely outside the ability of the executive branch to even do lawfully even if there were laws allowing it. Talking about the 'laws' as if the process fits within some sort of legal framework is completely surreal.

Okay... How can this be used

[LWATCDR]

For Hireing?
It is publicly available or is it only available to the government?

Re:Okay... How can this be used

[Tackhead]

> Okay... How can this be used
>
>For Hiring?
> Is it publicly available or is it only available to the government?

It's a government database, much like the databases that hold criminal records, etc. Access to it is sold to data brokers such as Choicepoint.

When Company X wants to hire you, they ask Choicepoint if you're "a good risk".

Choicepoint crunches the numbers by means of a proprietary formula, one of the ingredients of which your credit rating (for sale by other data brokers), another of which is your criminal record and/or arrest history (for sale by other arms of the government), and another of which is now your Terrorist Score.

Neither you (nor Company X!) ever finds out what your Terrorist Score is. Company X takes a look at Choicepoint's evaluation and combines it, with your resume, and how well you did on the job interview, and whatever else it wants... and decides whether or not to hire you.

So if your Terrorist Score is too high, you might not get the job, because Choicepoint or the other background-checking firms have decided that it's important enough to make you a risk... or maybe not. You'll never know. That's both a feature (everyone has plausible deniability, so nobody can get sued), and a bug (you may be denied a job because of a bogus data point in your Terrorist Score, just as you can be denied a job due to bogus data on your credit history -- but you can at least fix the errors in your credit history.)

Now that that's out of the way, can we stop calling it a Terrorist Score? If I keep using that term, your score goes up. Probably the only way to fix a bad Terrorist Score is to start calling it a Freedom Score. At the rate I'm going, I'm gonna have to donate at least $1000 to both the RNC and the DNC before I can get hired again, let alone fly anywhere.

Re:Okay... How can this be used

[trianglman]

Add to this the fact that the "terrorist" score is only a rating and doesn't include any of the reasons for the score, even to the databroker. The score could just mean you follow the wrong religion (establishment clause? what establishment clause?), dontate to a charitible organization that got on the wrong side of Bush & Co., and read the wrong books, or it could mean that you were witnessed in a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan smoking opium with OBL. Noone will ever know.

Basically, the perfect recipe for brilliant WTFery.

Re:Okay... How can this be used

[maxume]

It's hilarious that you would say you need to donate money to the RNC and DNC to be able to fly and then use $1000 as a value that would do anything. Absolutely hilarious.

Re:Okay... How can this be used

[Christopher_Edwardz]

I'm not a lawyer, but I sue and have been sued and am familiar (I believe) with the process.

One could and should be able to sue Choicepoint if one is denied a job because of this data if it is inaccurate or if they provided my information to someone that didn't need to have it and didn't have my authorization. (Barring government of course.)

I'd just have someone I knew that was a Choicepoint subscriber, with a duly signed form from me allowing such a thing, to submit a query. It seems like tenancy would be the way to go, as they pull everything (with no reason to do so in my opinion) and have dirt-level security. (I've worked in over a hundred complexes in the big city where I live. I assure you they have NO security.)

When the data is returned, I'd review it. If it were wrong, I'd file suit on Choicepoint and start discovery on every place at which I've rented and every job at which I had applied for years. All I care about is if they had used Choicepoint or not. I'd match the records retrieved from Choicepoint.

Then I would argue in court that Choicepoint had damaged me by providing false information that effected my life and damaged me substantially. I would argue that this is particularly flagrant given that Choicepoint will neither let me see nor correct this false information and is damaging me to this very day. Nor would they stop when asked. I'd ask for an injunction against them releasing this data to anyone. (Not that this would stop them from releasing it to the government.)

One of the problems with this approach is convincing the court that a) you have been damaged by not renting or not getting a job and b) that the Choicepoint data had something to do with it.

If the data was obtained without my consent, say a slimy bill collector company, I could sue them for providing sensitive information without my approval. That'd probably be an easier burden to show injury.

(Note: I would make an attempt (in fact, I'm writing the letter right now and send it registered mail, return receipt required) to contact them and review my records. Anything more than a full disclosure (*sigh* exempting my double-naught super-secret terrorist score) wouldn't fly with the court in all probability. If they coughed it up, my cause would be ended. If not, so much for the transparency they flaunt on their website's privacy policy. http://www.privacyatchoicepoint.com/)

Additionally, I imagine I would obtain ALL the people to which this information was provided for at least 10 years. If something popped up for which I did not authorize, I'd add that to the pile, stating that they are assisting data theft and I have no idea if my data had been compromised, nor had I authorized Choicepoint to release this data.

I would be interested to understand how Choicepoint can release this information without my express permission when other companies must obtain it. (They may be requesting signed forms, and if so, ok. If I signed and they can produce the signed forms.)

I would be interested to understand how they obtained all this data. Most of it is probably public record, so that'd be fine, but my credit reports probably are not. Did I sign something someplace that allowed this?

More speculation would be pointless without additional information, but I guess my point is... they are definitely not immune to being sued.

Finally, am I the only one bothered by the idea that: You (reader) might be, to a lesser or greater degree, a terrorist than I am, but you, nor I, may not be not a terrorist under this system? So it follows that everyone under this system is a terrorist by implication.

Since they refuse all data, I have to for safety's sake assume this is true, and the only real benefit this has (since it cannot be a deterrent as it cannot be known) is to provoke fear and control in the population?

Eheieh, Eheieh! Where has our country gone?

Re:Okay... How can this be used

[greenrd]

That would be stupid, because that's something that's easy for someone rich like Bin Laden to guess and to employ. (Obviously not Bin Laden himself, because that would be too risky, and besides, he needs a dialysis machine, but someone funded by him.)

Won't be too long

[balsy2001]

Until they start sending people with a score that is too high to secret prisons without the right to know why they are being charged or the evidence that is being used to convict them. All of this crap is getting way out of control.

Re:Won't be too long

[garcia]

All of this crap is getting way out of control.

Getting? Please. It's been more than "way out of control" for longer than I can remember. There shouldn't even be any fucking discussion about this sort of shit. People who "may" be locked up currently shouldn't have to wait for the lopsided Supreme Court to overturn this.

It's a sad time for our nation.

Re:Won't be too long

[Qzukk]

dissent is unpatriotic and unamerican.

Dissent is what founded our country.

Re:Won't be too long

[garcia]

So is humor. You must not be from the US. :roll:

Re:Won't be too long

[Pojut]

"Long live Jong-Il and down with the freedom fighters in the White House!"

If crime-fighters fight crime, and fire-fighters fight fire, what do freedom-fighters fight?

Re:Won't be too long

[balsy2001]

Well, you said it much better than I did.

Re:Won't be too long

[trianglman]

Judges only count as activists if they decide for civil rights and any constitutional amendment that isn't the second amendment... They are good, upstanding judges when they side with corporations and big government.

Re:Won't be too long

[ArcherB]

Dissent is what founded our country.

You are not correct. Revolution is what founded this country.

Re:Won't be too long

[DDLKermit007]

If by revolution, you mean not actually having a revolution, then yes. Read a history book sometime. No revolution happened in this country. Just a change of who got to make up the taxes & run the army (oh and the loss of mobbing as a right). If that'd happened, Washington & the bunch of them would have been hung. Which almost happened on a few occasions for not delivering on their promises.

Re:Won't be too long

[mrchaotica]

Revolution is a byproduct of dissent.

Re:Won't be too long

[trianglman]

Actually, there are a couple of things wrong with this argument.

1) Our country was founded on (among other things) the belief that people are innocent until proven guilty by a jury of their peers. This means that laws put in place to protect suspects on trial are in place to protect the innocent at the expense of protecting some guilty. To change those standards would undermine the Constitution. Things like allowing torture of people, without even the slightest burden of proof goes against everything every soldier has died for in the past 200+ years of this country.

2) I do not support a judicial rewriting of the second amendment, I do however support the judicial branch's constitutional power to interpret the Constitution. That was the entire purpose of the judicial branch. Thus the Supreme Court has the right to say that a law (that must be passed by Congress) banning Joe Shmo from owning automatic rifles, that have nothing to do with "A well regulated militia". Saying that the second amendment allows anyone and their brother to own whatever weapons they like is reinterpreting the Constitution more than limiting the availability of such weapons. (Disclaimer, I don't believe that owning firearms should be illegal, I fully support the right to own weapons, but I do believe that it should be regulated and that weapons designed only to kill other people should be more firmly regulated, if not fully restricted).

3) Using the phrase "for the people, by the people..." the way you did takes it fully out of context. Our government has never been a direct democracy. In a direct democracy, every person would vote on every issue that comes up. Our government is a Constitutional Republic, meaning we (the people) elect representatives (the "by the people") who are supposed to support our interests (the "for the people"). Often this doesn't mean doing exactly what we want, this often means doing what is best for all. If you go the other way it simply becomes mob rule and would likely fall into anarchy.

Our founding fathers knew what they were doing. Read their words (not the propaganda the far right wants to feed you) and you would understand liberals a bit better.

Does this system still function....

[zappepcs]

if you use a fake boarding pass :-)

Dupe...?

[__aaclcg7560]

Would it be illegal to mention that this article appears to be a dupe from a few days ago? Or would that affect my terrorist (karma) score? :P

Re:Dupe...?

[just_another_sean]

Although similar this is not a dupe. The previous article announced the program. This article espouses the opinions of the EFF, specifically Mark Rotenberg.

It's things like this that I like about slashdot. Posting multiple articles from different sources about the same subject allows for both a healthy debate by us and tends to provide more then one side to a story. Instead of just getting the bias of one publication we get to see the subtle shades of bias and decide for ourselves who makes sense, who we want to agree with or believe.

Re:Dupe...?

[TubeSteak]

It's things like this that I like about slashdot. Posting multiple articles from different sources about the same subject allows for both a healthy debate by us and tends to provide more then one side to a story. Instead of just getting the bias of one publication we get to see the subtle shades of bias and decide for ourselves who makes sense, who we want to agree with or believe.

A single link to Google News with the appropriate keywords appended would accomplish the same thing.

This is mostly a dig @ reporters and not at /. editors, but some of the articles that get put up on the frontpage have so little information that they're almost useless. Whenever I see those types of stories, I take a trip to Google News to see what was left out.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? Nobody!

[straponego]

Illegal?

Where is it that you guys are getting the idea that the rule of law applies to this administration? That wouldn't be in their interests at all. And since they're in charge of enforcing the laws they break...

And if you think that Congress, aside from a couple of freaks like Feingold and Leahy, are going to do anything about this at all... well, I hope you're right, but I'd bet against it.

PS: I like those freaks. I wish they weren't the exception.

I've seen this before

[NaCh0]

It sounds like a slightly modified spam-assassin with baysian filtering.

positive matches

[DreamerFi]

From the article:
 
  Paul Rosenzweig, a high-level Homeland Security official, told Congress in September that the system had "encountered 4801 positive matches for known or suspected terrorists." However, it is unclear how many of those were correct matches.
 
No, it's very clear. Zero. Zilch, none, nada. If there were any correct matches, they would trot them out and use them to demonstrate the "success" of the program.

Re:positive matches

[adsl]

Yes it's troubling that the DHS official cannot even tell anyone how many of the matches were correct. If the system can't answer that it must surely be junk. I can't imagine sitting in front of a Congressional Committee and having to admit that lack of accountability. The other way such stats are meaningless is that there are "criminals" who try to enter the USA everyday (and are turned back) and there is an already existing database to identisy them. So these SAME matches would also be made in this new database, but because they are already covered by legacy systems they are not NEW matches. Apart from the obvious legality issues DHS officials need to be honest and upfront about how well this new database is really working..or NOT. I've also heard that this database cannot be accessed by individuals wanting to check their own status. But DHS says you can complain! But how do you know to complain? Also the database can and WILL be given to foreign governments and sold to oustide firms (for MONEY). YIKES! This new sytem seems full of holes. I thought that DHS was created to have a more competent structure?

Re:positive matches

[juan2074]

Congress can fix this problem by not funding the National Targeting Center, the TSA, or any other agency that does this kind of shit.

switching to Stephen Colbert mode:
When are the senators and representatives going to grow some balls? (That includes you, Nancy Pelosi.)

Re:positive matches

[jd]

No, the matches were all positive, but they were all in Reed's matchbox. The dangerous thing with unspecifics is that it's not always obvious as to what the unspecifics are unspecific about.

Re:positive matches

[DreamerFi]

That's what the word "oversight" was invented for. Something the current administration seems to hate...

Re:positive matches

[splutty]

From the article:

    Paul Rosenzweig, a high-level Homeland Security official, told Congress in September that the system had "encountered 4801 positive matches for known or suspected terrorists." However, it is unclear how many of those were correct matches.

No, it's very clear. Zero. Zilch, none, nada. If there were any correct matches, they would trot them out and use them to demonstrate the "success" of the program

This information is completely and totally useless. The information you want is the total matches, the number of false positive, and the % of actual positives in relationship to the total number of initial positives.

If they found 4801 positive matches for known or suspected, if that's out of 290,000 total matches, then that would go a long way to proving the system is utterly useless.

Re:positive matches

[jd]

Oversight has several possible definitions, one of which the current administration is extremely good at.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[Wee]

And if the law is changed (again) and this is made illegal (again?), how will we know the scores aren't being used for some other purpose? How will we know the databases have been purged? Says the gov't: "Ok, ok... our bad. We won't do it anymore, honest!" How exactly will we know they've stopped? All manner of rights can be swept under the table when it's "potential terrorists" who are involved. And what politician will vote against something that is ostensibly in place to prevent harm to the citizens of the US? One small bomb goes off and it's political murder for everyone in the "Nay" column on that vote.

I think some sort of new check and balance needs to be put in place against the executive branch. We're supposed to have the Congress and the Supreme Court to protect us from potential abuses, but they haven't obviously served us very well in the past 6 years...

What we need, I'm not sure. But we need something.

-B

The Land of the free

[madsen]

When will you see that was used to be the land of the free suddenly has become what Orwell predicted, although he was off by some 20 years.
I'd say that at this point Osama is getting what he was after in the first case, to destroy the westerners "paradise".

Re:The Land of the free

[EntropyXP]

George Bush is doing everything that he can do at the last moment to try and salvage his legacy. His presidency has been marked by the worst disasters ever to affect America; 9/11, the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the Broncos losing their home opener.

Next thing you know, he'll have NASA purposely direct meteors at America so he can show how prepared for any disaster he is. Enormous clouds of dust will rise up out of the craters of midwest cities and George Bush will be flying over head in a helicopter touting his emergency preparedness plan and at the same time having congress sign over more power to him. He'll have congress give him an emergency 3rd term so that he can save America.

I'm seriously done with the hype and the fear that controls this country. Ever since 9/11 our country has not rested in the fight against terrorism. That means, that we are fighting the fear of terror. So, we are afraid. We're afraid of the terrorists. The terrorists don't have to do one damned thing ever again and we'll remain afraid as long as we're fighting this war. What do the terrorists want? They want us to be afraid. Fear will keep us from doing anything. Fear is an inhibitor. As long as this country remains afraid then it will not accomplish anything great.

Why were the Feds so slow to respond to the pain and suffering in New Orleans? Because we were paralyzed with fear. Why have gas prices gone through the roof? Because we're fear has robbed us of our ability to react. I am not afraid of the next disaster that will strike this country because there is a new one each day. Friends are dying in Iraq, friends died in New Orleans, and friends will be dying close to home as long as we live in fear.

George Bush... give me my country back you bastard! I'm not afraid of you, of Osama bin Laden, IEDs, cancer, hurricanes, snow flakes, bunny rabbits, muslims, christians, Hummers, or anything elses for that matter. You have taught me what fear is and fear is evil! I will not be afraid. I will act. I will do what I have to do as a human, as an American and as a fighter. I AM NOT AFRAID AND I WILL NOT BE CONTROLLED BY FEAR!!!!!

All the more reason...

[justkarl]

it should be used for Netflix or Slashdot instead.

Don't fly.

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't set foot in an airport since this insanity began, and I refuse to do so until this insanity ends.

Traveling by bus, train, or car is not as fast or comfortable, but at least you can do it with some of your privacy intact.

Just say no.

Re:Don't fly.

[Kagura]

The previous post was likely posted AC because the actual poster doesn't actually refuse to travel by plane. Rather, he hopes to convey a message that there are people that think this way, because he is not strong enough to send such a message himself.

Re:Don't fly.

[Builder]

I would say no, but I just can't swim that well. Plus, 9000KMs to see the family is a BITCH of a drive :(

Re:Don't fly.

[toiletsalmon]

There ARE people who think that way. I'm one of them. I've already passed up two busines trips for this very reason and when I take my family to Disney this summer, we're traveling by highway. I refuse to consciously put myself in a situation where I'm almost ASKING to be treated like a criminal. I'll take that airline ticket money and give it to someone else.

The one bright spot to all of this

[cje]

The one bright spot to all of this is that starting next year, you'll be able to log into www.FreeTerrorReport.com and get a free copy of your score from all three of the main terror bureaus.

Re:The one bright spot to all of this

[MECC]

FreeTerrorReport.com isn't taken - who wants it?

Re:The one bright spot to all of this

[cje]

Somebody really should take it -- it has the makings for a great satire site (not to mention a thinly-veiled backhand slap at the intelligence folks who think that things like this are a good idea).

Re:The one bright spot to all of this

[tool462]

...from all three of the main terror bureaus.

Legislative, Executive, and Judicial?

Re:The one bright spot to all of this

[trianglman]

No, CIA, FBI, and DOD. They are the bureaus actually tracking this information. The legislative and judicial will just help make it legal.

Re:The one bright spot to all of this

[Firehed]

+1, Scary but True

pet peeve

[Secret Rabbit]

One of my pet peeves is the word "deplane". It is NOT deplane, it is DISEMBARK!!!

Jesus, when did the airlines have such a low opinion of their passengers that they think that they don't know what disembark means?

Seriously, deplane? Sound more like delouse. AAAAAHHHHH, get these planes off me!!!

Re:pet peeve

[Chris Mattern]

They get their vocabulary from Herve Villechaize. "It's deplane, boss, deplane!"

Chris Mattern

Re:pet peeve

[mojodamm]

But 'deplane' sounds so much better when you're already living on whatever Fantasy Island these 'lawmakers' are...

Re:pet peeve

[Feanturi]

"Boss! Boss! Deplane! Deplane!"

Re:pet peeve

[Scrameustache]

One of my pet peeves is the word "deplane". It is NOT deplane, it is DISEMBARK!!! Preposterous! They were not in a craft propelled by sails or oars, but in a plane!

Next they'll be attempting a sea landing... oh. Wait.

Re:pet peeve

[B.D.Mills]

We don't need a word for entering and leaving different kinds of vehicles. "Disembark" should cover all forms of mass transit - ships, planes, trains, buses. We don't have words like "deship", "detrain" or "debus", so why must we have such nonsense as "deplane"?

Deplane sounds like what I do to a piece of paper when I make it into a ball and throw it in the rubbish, or deform any other planar surface so it is no longer a plane.

Or, as the parent poster suggested, it sounds like we are being cleansed of an infestation of tiny parasitic planes. Deice - remove ice, degauss - remove gauss, delouse - remove lice, deplane - remove planes. Makes more sense to me.

Re:pet peeve

[splutty]

It's obvious that deplaning is gluing the wood shavings back to the wood you were just planing, right? So what does this have to do with airlines?

Re:pet peeve

[SamSim]

Maybe we should say that the plane is being depassengered.

can't see it?

[rolyatknarf]

Data and the scores can be kept for 40 years, shared widely, and be used in hiring decisions but the traveler is not allowed to see it? Why would a prospective employer have access to this info but the prospective employee can't? They can say "we can't hire you because something showed up in your file but we can't tell you what it is". This has got to be bullshit if anything is.

Re:can't see it?

[durdur]

Welcome to the new USA, where "rights" are things that the government and corporations have.

Re:can't see it?

[rolyatknarf]

This has nothing to do with the USSR or GDR, and if you see nothing wrong with secret files that could prevent you from pursuing a job or career then you are a Lemming. Yes, I believe I have a right to know what information is being used against me and to object to that information if it is wrong.

"he was unaware of the language but ..."

[DBett]

otherwise fully willing to render his purported expert opinion on the legality of something he admits he was unaware of.

Not that such ignorance prevented the reporter from quoting him, or prevented Slashdot from posting this.

Profiling is a good thing...

[Eric Damron]

It seems to me that we all want to be kept safe from terrorist attacks but are unwilling to allow profiling. I can't help but believe that if you use profiling you will be getting better results with the limited resources you have. The fact is that ALL of the 9/11 terrorists were radical Muslims. How does it help to pretend that this isn't so? I'm not being prejudice just realistic. If there were a militant hristian movement complete with suicide bombers I would hope that for my safety Christians would be profiled.

Re:Profiling is a good thing...

[faedle]

While all the 9/11 terrorists were "radical Muslims", not all terrorists in general are.

Timothy McVeigh was not a "radical Muslim". Plus, as has been pointed out repeatedly, once you start profiling, the terrorists will just start to pick people that don't "fit" the profile.

Profiling also potentially violates the rights of people who may fit the profile but not be involved. Just because most people who commit violent crimes are black males doesn't mean we start jailing all black male men in the US. People are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the law in the US: that, tied with the ideal that race should not be a factor in deciding "guilt" or "innocence" makes the whole idea of "profiling" repugnant to many who still believe in the ideals this country was supposed to be founded on.

Profiling simply doesn't work, and can't work in a society that claims to be "free."

Re:Profiling is a good thing...

[cdrguru]

Yes, but it would offend some people.

Just the word "profiling" is offensive to African-Americans because of their extensive history in being "profiled" in the past. For example, the Florida State Police were prevented from such "profiling" back in the 1980's. They had identified a trend that expensive cars being driven at high speeds by African-Americans had a strong correlation to there being significant quantities of drugs in the car. This was viewed as completely unethical and such profiling was ended.

Regardless of the practicalities of the situation, profiling isn't going to fly in the US.

And, as an aside to the folks saying not all terrorists are Muslims, the problem is today that the overwhelming number of people that have a religious duty to kill Westerners happen to be Muslim. And, the Muslim folks are the ones pushing the envelope, as proven by the imam's little ritual going to Phoenix.

And, if we didn't have to worry about Muslim and their religious duty, we might actually be able to focus on keeping the small number of other wackos off airplanes.

Re:Profiling is a good thing...

[lymond01]

You can make a perfectly safe car, but it's really cost prohibitive as well as limiting to what the driver can do. Same with a perfectly safe America. The government and its systems can't protect Americans from everything. Americans should do their part as well: keep aware. If you're on a long flight, be a little anxious. Don't freak out, but be aware and consider your options if something did happen. You do it for crash landings, you may as well add:

"In the event some lunatic stands up in the aisle screaming "Death to all infidels!" please allow your airline staff direct access to said person while making staff aware of any other suspicious activities during the incident. And for choosing our bankrupt airline, we say thank you and have a nice flight."

Re:Profiling is a good thing...

[NeutronCowboy]

Woot! Woot! You've identified a very specific group of people after they've announced themselves as being part of that group. Congratulations.

Now tell me - how do you tell a radical Muslim from a just somewhat nutty muslim? How do you tell a radical Muslim from a radical nut? How do you tell a radical Muslim who is planning on bombing you from Joe Zaki down the street?

Profiling is a great idea. However, profiling based on racial characteristics or common choices like meal selection and prayer habits is fucking retarded. There are far too many false positives. And if false positives don't worry you... sorry, I can't help you. You're then just part of the problem. If you want to do it right, do it the hard way: human intelligence, infiltration, psychological profiling and very meticulous bag searches. There is no easy way to be safe. Get over it.

Re:Profiling is a good thing...

[aalegado]

Commenting on just the "People are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the law in the US" statement...

That only applies during the trial.

If the law presumed you were innocent then most arrests wouldn't happen (you're innocent after all, aren't you?). For the few arrests that did occur, it would then be rare for the DA to indict you (you're innocent after all, aren't you?). No, our system assumes guilt for the purpose of arrest and bringing charges and only presumes innocence during the trial.

Re:Profiling is a good thing...

[aalegado]

Osama's won. Our society's changed for the worst and the current Administration has helped keep us in fear of ourselves. All Al Queda has to do now is threaten to hack the server of the kid selling lemonade on the corner and the TSA puts us on Orange alert and we all have to be on the look out for strange people doing strange things while holding 3.1oz. of fluid in hard to see-through bags. God help us if a TSA agent drives through North Hollywood, CA on his way to work one night. He'd lose his mind and we'd go to Red alert and DEFCON 1.

Re:Profiling is a good thing...

[Peyna]

So, if we use profiling and pull all the Muslims out of line and inspect them, what's to stop the evil doers from hiring a white guy to do their work for them? I imagine there are plenty out there willing to do so.

Re:Profiling is a good thing...

[Jherek Carnelian]

If there were a militant Christian movement complete with suicide bombers I would hope that for my safety Christians would be profiled.

With over 1 billion Christians in the world and somewhere south of 1,000 terrorists, or say even 10,000 in "supporting roles" you've just narrowed your search down from 1 in 500,0000 to 1 in 100,000 -- not really effective when you consider it is at the cost of aggravating the other 99,999 non-terrorist Christians.

Even worse, since you really need those other 99,999 Christians to trust you enough so that they will come to you and report on any Christians in their community who seem to be legitimately suspicious. You've probably thrown away your best chance at actually catching dangerous people all because of bad logic.

Re:Profiling is a good thing...

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

And after you get finished profiling Tamils (world leaders in suicide bombings), Sikhs, Chechens, Nepalis, Peruvians, Germans, Irish, and Americans (remember how many terrorist groups there have been in the US) you might as well be doing universal screening.

One other problem is the base rate fallacy (look it up).

The conclusive problem is the fact that our enemies are adaptable. If they see dark-skinned people getting screened, or people getting yanked off airplanes for praying, then they'll simply send the John Walker Lindh types.

>just realistic

There's nothing realistic about wasting screening resources on Muslim non-terrorists when those resources could have gone to detecting terrorist non-Muslims.

>The fact is that ALL of the 9/11 terrorists were radical Muslims.

Since you're willing to make policy on a single data point, here's another single data point. The most recent hijacking attempt I found in Google News was an Eritrean hijacking a plane to Israel where he planned to seek political asylum.

If you want to protect airplanes you reinforce the cockpit doors and fly air marshals. If you want to stop terrorists you infiltrate them. If you want to shove people around to make yourself feel important or to exercise poorly rationalized bigotry, you profile.

Re:Profiling is a good thing...

[mutterc]

You've got to make sure that at least some of your screening is random, though.

Otherwise, if you only screen the Arab guys (yes I know Arab != Muslim, but you can see Arab, and can't see Muslim, so that's the way profiling would actually work), if The Terrorists recruit one white guy, he slips right through.

Domestic versus International Flights

[DBett]

The purported expert quoted in the article appears unaware that CAPPS and SecureFlight applied to domestic US flights. Those programs are accordingly more restricted - and subject to things like the "Section 514" mentioned. This program relates only to International Flights and thus has a whole different set of rules (unless I missed the imposition of Customs checks on domestic flights).

Once again ignorance is no bar to blanket assertions of illegal acts.

Yes, but...

[benhocking]

Yes, but how many of the Oklahoma City terrorists were Muslims? How many of the abortion clinic bombing terrorists were Muslims? How many of the Columbine terrorists were Muslims?

Re:Yes, but...

[Captain Sarcastic]

...how many of the Oklahoma City terrorists were Muslims?

All of them - just check the database.

How many of the abortion clinic bombing terrorists were Muslims?

All of them - just check the database. And don't tell me you can't!

How many of the Columbine terrorists were Muslims?

All of them - just check the database. And don't whine about it being exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests. After all, we're protecting our country... or at least all except for the statistically insignificant number who are Muslims... oops, sorry, I meant "potential terrorists."

<IRONY=0%>

Oh, dammit, I forgot the <IRONY=100%> tag again!

Re:Yes, but...

[ArcherB]

OK. How many people died in Columbine? How many died in abortion clinic bombings? How many died in Oklahoma?

Now, take those numbers, add them up and get a total. We'll call it WhitieCaused.
Add up how many white people committed these crimes. We'll call that number Whities.

How many did on 9/11, and the first WTC bombing. We'll call that number MuzzieCaused.
How many Arab/Muslim males caused it? We know the number to be 19.

Finally, factor those numbers with number of the particular profiles.
Let's say the Whitie number is 20. (I'm being conservative) Now divide that number by the number of white people who fit the profile of the Whities. That's 20/100,000,000. Now let's take the number of Muzzies and divide them by the muslim male population or 25/1,000,000. This means that a muslim male is more than 100 times more likely to commit a terrorist act than a white male.

So, I'll agree with your assessment if you'll agree that for every Whitie that is searched before boarding a plane, 100 Muzzies must be searched before boarding a plane. Fair enough for you?

(Granted, numbers may be off a bit and it depends how far you go back on the abortion clinic bombings, but I have not heard of an abortion clinic bombing in several years. I looked it up. Since 2000, there have been 13 bombings, arson or attempted bombings or arson resulting in one death.)

Re:Yes, but...

[ArcherB]

Crap, I forgot to include the casualty numbers. Well, we know that 3000 or so died in the WTC. We know that one has died in abortion clinic bombings since 2000 (source), 168 died in OK City (source) and 12 died at Columbine (source). This totals 181, but we'll skew the numbers in your favor and say 200.

If you want to factor these numbers in to further my case, that's fine with me. By my quick math, that means that Muzzie terrorists have killed 150 people to every person killed by a Whitie, while only having .01 the numbers of whities.

So until Whities kill a lot more Americans in terrorist acts, I think that profiling is a good idea based on simple probability.

DHS preserved the Constitution?

[businessnerd]

Wait, so let me get this straight...

The Department of Homeland Security actually wrote something that would PRESERVE our Constitutional rights?!?!

Who are you and what have you done with our fascist overlords?

link to comments and text of law

[ehasbrouck]

The link in the Wired New story is broken -- Regulations.gov doesn't use static URL's for individual documents.

The Identity Project comments, including as an appendix the text of the relevant law, are at:

http://hasbrouck.org/IDP/IDP-ATS-comments.pdf

Those comments also expain how the "Automated Targeting System" would include information on domestic flights and travelers, in addition to international travel records.

There's more background on my blog, and the Identity Project blog:

http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001184.html

http://papersplease.org/wp/2006/12/05/every-travel er-is-a-target/

I'll say this again

[p51d007]

Call me a racist, I could care less..... When 80 year old grandmas start blowing up buildings by flying airplanes into them, I'll start looking at 80 year old grandmas. Until then, the PATTERN has been since the 70's, 20-40 year old MUSLIM males causing all the problems, so you LOOK at those causing the problem. It isn't "profiling", it's called common sense!

Re:I'll say this again

[maztuhblastah]

Fair enough. I'm sure you also support profiling against other religions, other nationalities, and other political groups.

No? Oh.

Racist.

Re:I'll say this again

[aadvancedGIR]

For 75% of the world population, the most evil persons in the world are 40 to 75yo white catholic american males. Should we jail them all?

Re:Of Course, We Could Just Round Up all the Musli

[erroneus]

I really hate to admit it, but I think you're quite right. And if they are actually good people, and not evil destroyers, then they should also agree to wearing a big yellow crescent moon badge on their outer garments so that everyone knows that they are not to be mistaken for the "bad muslims." It's for their own good you know... else they might get shot by mistake or something.

But then, you know, there are Americans out there, not me and not you of course, that can't tell the difference between a good muslim and a bad muslim, badge or no badge. So in the interests of their safety, we should ask them to move to an enclosed, all-muslim collective zone until we can get this war on terror sorted out. It's really the only way to prevent tragedy from befalling the good muslims after all.

I think the whole nation has lost its mind. The two paragaphs above this are complete bull-crap. I think the parallels to history are pretty obvious and it should be obvious to all why it's wrong. I think our society would be far better off if we kept ALL of our freedoms in-tact and let the "terrorists" do their worst. I think our freedom is worth it. And yes, even if it means there would be increased possibility of my own children being killed. (Because as far as I can see, there would STILL be a higher probablility of death on the freeway or death by rampaging teenager in school than death by terrorist attack.) Let's take a clue from other nations that have been dealing with radical violence for decades or longer. Let's just go on about our lives and let the police do their jobs with the tools they already have. It's good enough if they aren't lazy worthles pigs.

Don't Like It? Tell them!

[cybermage]

DHS has received a whopping 59 comments about the system before the December 4th deadline and so they extended the deadline for comments to Dec 29th. Details are in this WIRED article

Re:Don't Like It? Tell them!

[finkployd]

Yeah good idea, we KNOW for a fact that they use the no fly list to harass people they don't like, I am sure anyone who responds negatively gets a couple points added against them on the score. I mean really, why not? There is no oversight, no way to view or attempt to correct it. Why on earth WOULDN'T they use it on a whim to punish those who disagree with them. Look at it from their perspective, they feel they are protecting the country and everyone who disagrees with them wishes them to be out of a job and wants us all to be less safe. It probably is not much of a logical leap in their minds to think dissenters could be dangerous an deserve a few more Terror Points (tm).

Finkployd

Re:Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? Nobody!

[joebagodonuts]

Good point. Where do folks get the idea that blame applies only to the Administration? Last I checked, the "Other Branch" that was supposed to balance (Congress) rolled over.

"Hey, all of this monitoring stuff the bureaucracy's lusted for for years sounds like a great idea".

Now supposedly Congress is going to grow a set? I'll believe it when I see it. They won't give a damn until this is used against one of them as a political tactic (not if, when).

Re:Of Course, We Could Just Round Up all the Musli

[BeerCat]

the first two paragraphs may be with tongue firmly in cheek, but there are way too many people who not only fail to spot the historical parallel, but will think it is a Good Idea.

On the bright side, my amulet protecting me from terrorists seems to work - since I bought it, I haven't been killed by a terrorist. Maybe I should sell it to the president, so that he can save billions by dissolving the TSA and DHS

6 Imans

[Nom du Keyboard]

I know 6 Imans who ought to be scoring pretty high on this list right about now.

Re:Of Course, We Could Just Round Up all the Musli

[IflyRC]

The first two paragraphs actually describe how Iran currently operates but just substitute Muslim for Christian.

Lost in translation

[ozbird]

Not knowing what DHS is (I'm not an oppressed American), the headline read like:
a) DHS is an airline (or similar),
b) one of their passengers got lucky, but
c) they got busted.

Re:Lost in translation

[PitaBred]

DHS = Department of Homeland Surveillance^WSecurity

Hopefully, they do get busted.

Something everyone is forgetting here:

[ArcherB]

Every amendment in the Constitution deals with what Congress shall or Congress shall not do. Like it or not, but flying is not a right and the Constitution does not apply to airlines. Every citizen if free to vote with their pocket books and take the bus, boat or rail.

Re:Something everyone is forgetting here:

[PitaBred]

Nor is driving. But they don't check whether I'm a terrorist to see if I can drive, and they don't consider whether I have a driver's license when considering me for a job (when it's not germane to the job). They should not consider some random score used by airlines and the government, secretly and uncontestably in any kind of serious fashion such as for hiring, or for flying. This is someone's life you're messing with here... it's well within their rights (IMNSHO) to want to be able to review the information you have on them, and contest it if it's incorrect.

Re:Something everyone is forgetting here:

[DragonWriter]

Every amendment in the Constitution deals with what Congress shall or Congress shall not do.

False. Counterexamples include Amendments II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, and XXII; additionally, a number of others deal only tangentially with what Congress shall or shall not do, granting particular individual rights, often enforceable against the states, but stating that Congress shall have the power to enforce the provisions of the amendment by appropriate legislation. Come to think of it, the only amendments that are principally concerned with what Congress shall or shall not do are the first and, so far, last: Amendments I and XXVII.

Sure, the REPORT is free...

[dpbsmith]

...but your terror score will cost $9.95.

Call me crazy...

[Fear the Clam]

When passengers deplane, Customs and Border Protection personnel then target the high scorers for extra screening.

But wouldn't it make more sense to give those high scorers extra screening before they got on the plane?

Re:Call me crazy...

[hcdejong]

You realize that this is about international flights, right? Flights that do not originate on US soil? I.e. where the takeoff point is NOT under US control?

Damn...

[Billy the Mountain]

My fantasy of the U.S. becoming more and more like the Minority Report utopia is being foiled by pesky civil-rights laws.

BTM

Just to argue logic (and no politics)...

[benhocking]

Finally, factor those numbers with number of the particular profiles. Let's say the Whitie number is 20. (I'm being conservative) Now divide that number by the number of white people who fit the profile of the Whities. That's 20/100,000,000. Now let's take the number of Muzzies and divide them by the muslim male population or 25/1,000,000. This means that a muslim male is more than 100 times more likely to commit a terrorist act than a white male.

So, I'll agree with your assessment if you'll agree that for every Whitie that is searched before boarding a plane, 100 Muzzies must be searched before boarding a plane. Fair enough for you?

Just to argue the logic and not the politics (because I'm certain neither of us will budge on that), your logic is flawed. First of all, that 25 should be 19 (unless I'm missing 6 from somewhere, which I'll admit is possible). So, we'll just let both numbers be 19. (If I really wanted to, I could come up with scores of "Columbinish" events, including one that happened at a school where I used to teach, but I won't go there.) As I'll try to explain, the denominator in the first paragraph is irrelevant for your profile rate in the second paragraph. If there are 100 times more "Whities" than "Muzzies" (gak!), then if you search one W for each one (not 100) M, then you'll be targeting them 100 times as much (since there are 1/100th as many to search). If you searched 100 M's for every 1 W (as you suggest), then you are targeting them 10,000 times as much despite your assertion that they are only 100 times more likely to be a terrorist.

Then, of course, there's the problem of identifying M's. Are we going to use crescent armbands or something? (Does that count towards Godwin?).

Re:Just to argue logic (and no politics)...

[ArcherB]

First, I included the first WTC bombing as well as Zac Moussoui (misspelled, I'm sure) to come up with my 25 number.

Next, I was trying to point out to the OP that even though there are white terrorists, when you factor in the number of white people that live here, the number is insignificant to the number of Arab/Muslim terrorists when the ratio is factored in. While I think that profiling should be used only sparingly (see the recent Muslim Cleric story in Minnesota for a good example of when profiling should be used), I'm tired of people throwing Tim McVeigh in my face to try to prove that white people are just as likely to commit a terrorist act as Muslims. Unfortunately, the numbers don't reflect their logic, especially since I only counted white males for the total number of whites and all Muslims (men, women and children) for the Muslim ratio.

Finally, I understand how terribly non-PC it is for me to even bring this up, but I feel that being PC is starting to cost this country too much in $$'s and lives.

I think you totally misread my first statement

[benhocking]

I said we should argue the logic (i.e., the lack of meaning in the denominators) rather than the politics since we definitely won't agree on the politics (at least not completely). If there are X terrorists of type A, and Y terrorists of type B, then the proper sampling would be X/Y regardless of how many total people there are of types A and B - unless you have additional information that we didn't even discuss.

Here's the basic logic: let's assume you have the accurate P(T|A), where T=person is terrorist, and A=person is of type A, and P(T|B). In this case, we'll say (for sake of argument) that P(T|A) = 25/100,000,000 and P(T|B) = 25/1,000,000. I.e., P(T|A) = 0.01 * P(T|B). Now, let's assume that the probability of flying on an airplane is identical for groups A & B (i.e., I'm assuming no "a priori" information). That means that P(F|A) = P(F|B), where F=person is flying on a plane. Let's also assume (although I won't argue it) that P(F|A) is independent of P(T|A). This assumption of equality will mean that we won't actually need to use this probability.

Now, the question you're really trying to ask, when you're (sort of) asking what is the ratio of A to B that should be sampled is what is P(A|T) relative to P(B|T)? Now, Bayes' theorem tells us that P(A|T)P(T) = P(A,T) = P(T|A)P(A). Solving this for P(T) gives us P(T) = P(T|A)P(A)/P(A|T). By similar logic, P(T) = P(T|B)P(B)/P(B|T), so P(T|A)P(A)/P(A|T) = P(T|B)P(B)/P(B|T). Now, if we assume that the ratio of P(A)/P(B) = 100 (i.e., there are 100 times more A than B), and given our initial assumption that P(T|A)/P(T|B) = 0.01, we have that P(A|T) = P(B|T). I.e., for every A you search, you should search 1 (and not 100) B. Note: this means that you will be effectively sampling B at 100 times the rate of A.

Re:I think you totally misread my first statement

[ArcherB]

While you won't discuss politics with me (like beating your head against brick), I know better than to contest math with an astrophysicist. That said, with your explanation, I see the whole in my logic. I was assuming that an equal number of A and B fly. Still, by this logic and my uncorroborated numbers, one group should stand a higher probability of being searched than the other, but the overall risk from either group is much closer to equal, depending the number from each group that actually fly, at least in a purely logical (Vulcan) non-PC world.

While I was a math minor at one point, I still see math better than I prove it. I could tell the teacher/professor that X approaches, but never reaches 0 as Y increases (X=1/Y), but I couldn't prove it on the chalk board without drawing a graph. It helps me day to day, but didn't help my grades any. So I married a chemist and earned an IT degree.

Thanx for explanation. It's been an honor.

EFF is already on it

[EveLibertine]

Linkage

From the link:
Earlier this month, EFF's FLAG Project submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to DHS seeking more details about the ATS data-mining program, but the agency has not yet disclosed the requested information.

For EFF's full comments to DHS:
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/ats/ats_comments.pdf

For the DHS Federal Register notice announcing ATS:
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2006/06-9026.htm

EDIT MODE ON!

[EveLibertine]

Oops, forgot the link:

http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_11.php#00503 0

A) Doesn't change the screening logic...

[benhocking]

and B) I hope you're familiar with the concept of over-generalization? I.e., you can't extract very much meaningfully predictive information from a single example.

Normally, I'd be happy to argue the actual politics with you (rather than just the logic), but I know it would be fruitless (and that's not intended to be an insult in any way - it's admittedly fruitless in both directions), and I'm a little tired.

Not that I really expect the logic/math argument to be that much more successful... :)

Re:Moo

[Chacham]

Mod parent up!

Silly moderators don't understand a good pun when the see it. :)

Re:Not hard at all

[Drgnkght]

Not quite correct. The screening is done prior to arrival. The article doesn't say when, just that nothing happens because of it until the "suspect" deplanes (is on US soil) and, one must assume, subject to arrest.

Regardless, here is another quote from the article:
The system appears to fly in the face of legal requirements Congress has placed in the Homeland Security appropriations bills for the last three years, which states, "None of the funds provided in this or previous appropriations Acts may be utilized to develop or test algorithms assigning risk to passengers whose names are not on government watch lists."

I don't see anything specifically about prescreening there.

DHS = Department of Heimat Sicherheit?

[splutty]

That's what I always thought... Hmmm.. Strange how these things turn out to be differently named, but essentially the same.

Don't fly DELTA

[GreenSwirl]

Delta Airlines delayed my flight out of San Jose, supposedly because it was foggy in Atlanta. It's 5 hours away, plenty of time for a fog to lift, but whatever. They made me miss my connecting flight. I had to spend the night in Atlanta ($274). They won't reimburse me, because the delay was "due to weather".

So don't fly if it's foggy somewhere in the country. Especially don't fly Delta.

Deplane! Deplane!

[bwcbwc]

Boss, it's de plane!

What was the name of that show again? That's the only appropriate use I can think of. Or maybe it's the opposite of the verb "to plane" as used in carpentry. Instead of leveling a wooden surface, you gouge it and make it wavy.