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).'"

Does this system still function....

[zappepcs]

if you use a fake boarding pass :-)

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.

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:The one bright spot to all of this

[MECC]

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

Re:pet peeve

[Chris Mattern]

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

Chris Mattern

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?

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?

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: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.

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: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.