The next generation of airport security measures, CAPPS II, would tangle passengers in a web of suspicion without doing much to prevent real terrorists from boarding planes.
Published September 15, 2003
It isn't often you see the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Conservative Union holding a press conference together, but they did recently to raise alarm bells over the newest incarnation of airport security.
On the drawing board of the Transportation Security Administration is a massive data-mining program that will ostensibly protect the traveling public by doing a computer search on every airline passenger. The system, expected to be operational and fully deployed by next summer, will use algorithms to determine each passenger's level of risk and whether additional screening is necessary.
While the TSA says this will be an efficient and effective means of securing air travel, there is little reason to believe it will do anything more than harass and delay millions of innocent travelers while letting the real terrorists slip by. Groups on the left and right have been galvanized by this reality and just how invasive this system might be.
In July, the TSA announced through a notice in the Federal Register that it would soon be testing the next generation Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, known as CAPPS II. As currently conceived, CAPPS II will operate in two phases. First it will authenticate the identity of each passenger by comparing four pieces of information - name, birth date, home address and home phone number - to a database owned by private commercial vendors.
Then each passenger will be risk assessed. The TSA won't disclose much about this process except to say that passengers will be matched against a large database of national security information on suspected terrorists. It is unclear what other kinds of databases might be incorporated into this step. But it is possible that personal financial, business and educational records may be used.
Every passenger will be designated either green, yellow or red risk level. Greens will pass freely, yellows will be subject to added scrutiny and reds will probably be detained. Here, the "yellow" category is most concerning. If even a small proportion of air travelers are tagged as yellow, that will translate into millions of people being subjected to the extra security measures.
Far worse than a random search system, "yellows" will be actual suspects. Government computers will have deemed them a potential risk to airline safety, but they will not be told the reasons why. Under CAPPS II, passengers tagged "yellow" will not be given the information necessary to correct the misperception.
These air travelers will be stuck in a netherworld of suspicion, plucked out of line during each trip to the airport. The TSA public notice on the system warns that anyone trying to find out why they were designated a higher risk level will probably be told that that information is no longer available.
Astoundingly, this is going forward without much congressional interest. Congress doesn't seem interested in scrutinizing this system, the way it scaled back John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness program (later renamed Terrorism Information Awareness). There are a few ongoing efforts in Congress, particularly those of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, to require that CAPPS II conform to certain privacy standards, but there has been no general outcry. Yet the system poses many of the same dangers as TIA: that of innocent travelers being made objects of suspicion based on unknown databases of information.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of CAPPS II is that it will be ineffective in stopping actual terrorists. The system depends entirely on a person being who he says he is. Someone who has stolen another's identity and created false identification papers such as a passport or driver's license could easily fool the computers. Only terrorists and their associates stupid enough to travel under their real names and identities will be caught.
There needs to be a broader national conversation about the use of data-mining systems such as CAPPS II before they are adopted in such large-scale fashion. CAPPS II will provide little more than the illusion of security. It will not make air travel safer, but it will very likely cast suspicion on millions of people, making flying an even more burdensome experience for them.
