The new
Transportation Security Administration Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System II or (
CAPPS II) system is a computer database system that probes into flier's backgrounds and passenger's identities comparing personal information against criminal records and intelligence information.
The system "will provide protections for the flying public," said TSA spokesman Brian Turmail. "Not only should we keep passengers from sitting next to a terrorist, we should keep them from sitting next to wanted ax murderers."
Passengers are assigned a color code - green, yellow or red-- based in part on their city of departure, destination, traveling companions and date of ticket purchase and the background check.
Welcome to the airport police state
The majority of people will be green carded and will have no problems. But up to 8 percent of passengers who board the nation's 26,000 daily flights will be given "yellow" cards and will undergo additional screening at a checkpoint, according to people familiar with the program.
An estimated 1 to 2 percent will be given "red" cards and will be prohibited from boarding. These passengers also will face police questioning and may be arrested.
This is all without a trial or even a crime having been committed.
What if you’re a political activist? What if you have an arrest record for drugs. Or you have an Arabic name? Who decides who gets red carded? And since when can the government arbitrarily take away your ability to fly and or travel?
"This system is going to be replete with errors," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program. "You could be falsely arrested. You could be delayed. You could lose your ability to travel."
The original CAPS system was put into place after the bombing of an airline over Lockerbie, Scotland. It identifies some passengers as risky based on a set of assumptions about how terrorists travel. For instance, passengers are flagged if they bought a one-way airline ticket, or if they paid with cashinstead of a credit card. Flagged passengers issued boarding passes that bear a coding of "SSS" or "***."
CAPS II takes this further - airlines must now send information about everyone flying on their planes, foreign or domestic to the TSA, including the person's full name, home address, home telephone number, date of birth and travel itinerary.
The passenger's name and information will then be checked against databases of private companies (who’s writing or compiling these databases?) that collect information on people for commercial reasons. Passengers will then be given a numerical score that will indicate the likelihood that the passenger is who he says he is. (What if I'm living off the grid and don't shop? What if I'm a farmer without credit cards?)
Passengers will not be informed of their color code or their numerical score. Then passenger info will be scanned against government intelligence and outstanding police warrants for violent felonies. (How do we know they will only scan for violent felonies?)
If the computer system flags a passenger as a red carded threat, then the TSA will notify law enforcement authorities.
David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, says, "This system is not designed just to get potential terrorists," Keene said. "It's a law enforcement tool. The wider the net you cast, the more people you bring in."
So let me ask you... how was your flight or didn't you make it onboard?
quotes taken from The New York Times