CAPPS II and you
“A secretive new system for conducting background checks on all airline passengers threatens to create a bureaucratic machine for destroying Americans’ privacy and a government blacklist that will harm innocent Americans, the ACLU said today.
The ACLU’s warning came in response to statements by officials of the Transportation Security Agency that the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System II (CAPPS II) will be tested at several airports around the U.S. starting sometime in March.
‘CAPPS II is based on the same concept as the Pentagon’s ‘Total Information Awareness’ program, which proposed massive fishing expeditions through some of our most personally sensitive data,’ said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program. ‘We are all concerned about airline security, but we must not let the unique needs in our airports give the government an opening to create the kind of Big Brother program that Americans rejected so resoundingly in the Pentagon.'”
Given the way that foreign nationals have been treated of late at U.S. airports, isn’t it good to know that they’ll now be applying the same careful scrutiny to your credit report and the rest of you background when you fly? At least no one would end up getting their security-risk level raised because of their political beliefs or outspoken criticism of the government… right?
Here’s what you can do about it: Boycott Delta [via Boing Boing]
Read more about it here.
