CAPPS-II

The U.S. Department of Justice has asked an appellate court to keep its arguments secret for a case in which privacy advocate John Gilmore is challenging federal requirements to show identification before boarding an airplane.

A federal statute and other regulations "prohibit the disclosure of sensitive security information, and that is precisely what is alleged to be at issue here," the government said in court papers filed Friday with the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Disclosing the restricted information "would be detrimental to the security of transportation," the government wrote.

Attorneys for Gilmore, a 49-year-old San Francisco resident who co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, said they don't buy the government's argument and that its latest request raises only more questions.

Gilmore wants to be able to fly without showing id. He's got a reasonable case. Anonymous travel is an important freedom, unless you like showing your papers to the police whenever you leave home. It's only a step from that to asking permission whenever you leave home -- and THAT is all the way back to the middle ages. Serfs asked permission before they left their ruler's land. We shouldn't have to.

The Transportation Security Administration has overhauled the controversial Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS) II and will take over responsibility for checking airline passengers' names against terrorist watch lists.

The new government program, announced Aug. 26, is called Secure Flight. Testing will begin within the next 60 days for the latest phase of the two-year, over-$100 million program within the next 60 days. The overhaul follows a CAPPS II review ordered by Homeland Security Department Secretary Tom Ridge in July.

So... "Secure Flight". Nice new PR-type name. But it's the same program. How do I know it's the same program, when it's been "overhauled"? Simple. You can't overhaul a program like CAPPS-II in a month! But you can change it's name. And that's all they've done here.

Unlike the previous proposal, the new system will only look for known or suspected terrorists, not other law enforcement violators. In addition, it will include a redress mechanism, where people can resolve questions if they believe they have been unfairly or incorrectly selected for additional screening.

Actually, the previous program looked for anyone who matched a "profile of suspicion". It didn't have anything to do with "law enforcement violators", except that people known to be criminals obviously got higher "suspicion" ratings. But that wasn't what had most people concerned about the program. Instead, people were concerned that other factors -- like not owning a home, or flying one-way, or buying too much middle-eastern food -- would result in their being unable to fly (or unable to fly without being singled out for harassment) without any chance to challenge or appeal the decision.

Now, they say they have included a redress mechanism. Right. Ever punched one of those buttons on the elevator? The ones that use pictograms to suggest that if you punch the button, the elevator doors will close? Ever done that? Ever timed whether the doors close faster?

I have. (Yeah, I know, you don't have to say it). The button doesn't do a damn thing (at least in the elevators I have tested) other than make the person punching it feel like they are doing something useful. And this is the same thing. "We have a redress mechanism! Punch the button!"

What we need isn't a feel-good button that doesn't do anything. What we need is a system that stops terrorists from blowing up or taking over airplanes. And that's simple enough. Arm the pilots, so the plane can't be taken over by people with box cutters. Then, make sure no one can carry explosives onto an airplane.

I don't actually care if the terrorist is on the airplane, although ideally he should be arrested when he tries it. I care that the terrorist can't blow up the plane and can't take it over to blow up later.

The government may soon be performing background checks on you when you fly.

These checks, part of a government program called CAPPS II, will assign each airline passenger a threat level based on secret criteria and clandestine sources of information. If your threat level is too high, you could be stopped for extra searches or even banned from flying with no way to clear your name.

We all agree that airport security is vitally important, but this system will not make us any safer since terrorists could circumvent the system using simple methods like fake driver?s licenses. Furthermore, since it is based on notoriously inaccurate government databases, this national system would only increase the delays and make it inevitable that innocent Americans -- regular people traveling for work or vacations -- would be delayed, hassled and even prevented from flying.

The nation's major airlines are not actively opposing this program. They need to hear that you oppose their participation and do not want them to help the government conduct error-prone background checks every time you fly.

Follow the link to an ACLU activism opportunity. Remember, before the TSA will arm pilots to defend their airplanes, they will:

1. Confiscate nail clippers
2. Institutionalize strip searches
3. Make a mockery of the 4th Amendment
4. Make nursing mothers drink their breast milk
5. Shoot down the airplane

Outside government bureaucrats think we need their permission before we can get on a plane.

We think they're wrong, so we're turning to the US District Court for help.

The TSA has already issued (or will issue) a secret Security Directive ordering airlines to turn over all their passenger records so they can test the CAPPS II system.

We think the Feds need to tell us what they're planning before they start turning every flight we take into an excuse to snoop. The TSA didn't bother responding to a letter we sent, so we're asking the US District Court in Anchorage to help us find out the truth.

This is an excellent site explaining the problems with the CAPPS-II passenger profiling system. Good luck with the lawsuit, folks.

A controversial and much-delayed proposed airline screening system may face further delays as the Transportation Security Administration restructures the system to better protect privacy and civil liberties, a senior homeland security official told Congress on Tuesday.

Adm. David Stone, acting administrator for the Transportation Security Administration, told members of the Senate Commerce Committee that the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System II, known as CAPPS II, "is not going forward as previously briefed." He said the rethinking was in response to a February report (PDF) critical of the program, as well as the TSA's own privacy concerns.

"The Department of Homeland Security and the TSA feel very strongly we should not move forward on any program that in any way infringes on preserving our freedoms," Stone said. "That is first and foremost."

Want to know what this is about? I'll tell you: it's about the 2004 elections. Bush's administration is feeling the heat over civil rights. They're starting to backpeddle a little. Keep the pressure on, folks, because we're WINNING.

UPDATE: Wired.com says the program is "dead", not just delayed, but they can't get confirmation. Personally I don't buy it. The program will stay "dead" until after the elections; then you can look to see it return under a different name, and with a great deal of effort spent on keeping it secret.

A day or two ago, I told you that CAPS-II was delayed. Ridge (Director of Homeland Security) promised it was dead, and even made stabbing motions like a stake to a vampire's heart. It played well to the cameras, I'm sure. But I predicted that it would come back under a new name and a black budget, just like TIA did. Turns out I was right.

There were two things that tipped me off. First, my abiding cynicism regarding government; we've already seen this trick with TIA and I figured they would try the same thing. Second, everyone knows that if you unstake a vampire, he'll rise again. Even Ridge's little pantomine drives the point home; vampires are undead. They come back from the dead on a nightly basis. And apparantly that's what CAPS-II will do, at least until after the election.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) this week announced the next steps for implementing "Secure Flight," the passenger-profiling system that will replace the highly controversial "CAPPS II" system. The upshot is that everyone who traveled domestically in June 2004 will now serve as a guinea pig for the new system, with the government ordering the airlines to turn over your personal records to match the information against terrorist watch lists. At the same time, TSA will examine whether using additional data about you aggregated in commercial databanks will aid in the passenger-screening process. If Secure Flight passes this "stress test" and gets the go-ahead from the government, TSA will proceed with the program.

If this sounds familiar, that's because it should. Plans for CAPPS II were scuttled over concerns about cost, effectiveness, and impact on privacy and civil liberties. Unfortunately, Secure Flight poses many of the same problems. For example, the watch lists currently in use have already been shown to be inaccurate; in a recent high-profile example, Senator Ted Kennedy was repeatedly misidentified as a suspected terrorist. Yet it remains unclear how individuals who are improperly flagged will be protected.

As predicted, TSA just waited a while to let the press attention die down and changed the name of the program. They're still doing the same damn thing.