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CAPPS Is Back and Bigger Than Ever

The Department of Homeland Security has started testing CAPPS II again. A new and improved data warehouse for citizen surveillance:

To the Department of Homeland Security, you are no longer an American, you are a potential terrorist. Soon, anyone who books a flight through the Galileo Computerized Reservation System will have a nice fat file opened-up on them. In another test of a new Orwellian airline security program by the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration, Galileo will be facilitating background checks on anyone using their system.

The basic idea behind CAPPS and the new and improved CAPPS is to evaluate each traveler based on data collected from public and private databases and decided whether to let people fly. The problem with this system, as with all the others I've blogged is the quality of the data and the serious consequences of the bad data.
The Galileo airline reservation system is the only participant at this point. The easiest way to avoid this latest in a series of bad ideas from the DHS is to boycott Delta airlines. There was a boycott during the original CAPPS, mostly by business travelers who don't need the extra hassle of being treated as potential terrorists.

Posted by Mark Monday, August 25, 2003 12:25:00 PM | permalink |