DHS Passenger Scoring Almost Certainly Illegal 181
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).'"
Will congress simply legalize it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Won't be too long (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Will congress simply legalize it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? Nobody! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Will congress simply legalize it? (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Won't be too long (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
positive matches (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Will congress simply legalize it? (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Okay... How can this be used (Score:5, Insightful)
>
>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:Won't be too long (Score:5, Insightful)
Dissent is what founded our country.
can't see it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Land of the free (Score:3, Insightful)
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!!!!!
Profiling is a good thing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Will congress simply legalize it? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'll say this again (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Will congress simply legalize it? (Score:5, Insightful)
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:can't see it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Denies rights based on secret laws (Score:4, Insightful)
Somehow I find that rather scary.
Something everyone is forgetting here: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Will congress simply legalize it? (Score:2, Insightful)
> 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? (Score:1, Insightful)
Call me crazy... (Score:4, Insightful)
But wouldn't it make more sense to give those high scorers extra screening before they got on the plane?
Re:Will congress simply legalize it? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.