Originally Posted by
RichardKenner
As to the issue of credit reports, my guess would be that the standard used would be quite different from that of somebody giving credit: I suspect that what's looked for there is the extent of the credit history, specifically how long it goes back. The dollar figures don't seem relevant.
So I'm wondering if the idea here is simply to see if one can determine that the passenger is somebody who has "stability". In other words looking at things like how far back their credit history goes, if they're employed, how long they've been at their current address, how often they fly, etc.
Then the TSA should be able to provide documented studies and evidence that checking credit histories indicate who and who is not a trusted traveler. It is unacceptable to peer into the lives of people on that level based on "conventional wisdom" or "It would seem likely that people with bad credit..."
My company toyed with the idea of doing credit checks on new applicants and I convinced our CEO to require documentation that people with bad credit means they present risk to the company. No one was able to provide a study that demonstrated that applicants with bad credit either 1) present additional risk to the company or 2) they were not as good employees as those with good credit. In fact, one of our HR gurus found a study from about five years ago (IIRC) that indicated just the opposite; that credit made no difference in work habits or productivity. And with that, the CEO prohibited credit checks on applicants.
Considering the fact that we are in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and the collapse of the real estate market, the number of people who have lost their homes or jobs and defaulted to creditors is at record highs. I find it hard to believe that a family from Topeka that lost the family home, credit cards, jobs and ended up filing bankruptcy is at some higher risk of being susceptible to Al Qaeda recruitment