MAYBE it will be invalidated. Don't forget the European Commission AUTHORIZED the test of CAPPS-II.

You are assuming that DHS is going to start using the SF system tomorrow. The information given is that it could take up to 60 days to get the system running for a TEST. I would not be surprised if the test began on airlines that did not serve EU destinations. (YX, B6, WN, etc.) A negative ruling from an EU court would have virtually zero impact on a company that did not do business in the EU. Either that, or airlines will start giving an EU privacy notice in the fine print within the next 2 months. That's all that's required.

If it's more privacy protection in the U.S. that you want--and I'm not arguing that that's bad policy--that's a matter for Congress to take up. (I doubt a GOP-controlled Congress will make any headway on the matter.)

On a slightly different point...are you a member of a frequent flyer program? (Is there anyone on this board who isn't?) I see as somewhat disingenuous the stinkification over "travel privacy" when your voluntary FF participation puts your entire travel history and other demographic information in the hands of virtually EVERY business partner with the airline. Saying that the government checking my name against a terrorist database to see if I am a threat to other passengers is WRONG but Avis Rent-A-Car checking my name against my travel history to send me valuable coupons is OK just doesn't sit right with me.

Why not? I want Avis coupons, but I don't want a background check. Also, my participation in a FF program is not required as a condition of flight, government terrorist database checking soon will be. Also, I can opt out of many airline partners' marketing databases. I cannot opt-out of government harassment if I want to fly.

It is only a violation of civil rights if the person has an inherent right to privacy and it is violated without 1) probable cause, 2) warrant (essentially same thing) or 3) national security.

Do you have a right to fly? And is it in the national security interest of the country to check names against a watch-list?

My opinion (and this will be fought in the courts for years to come, IMO) is no and yes, respectively.

Do you have a right to take a taxi? No, you take a taxi as a contract between you and the taxi driver. If the taxi driver doesn't want to take you then he doesn't have to.

If the Air Carriers doesn't want to sell a ticket or doesn't want you to fly it is up to them. In order to get to your perferred destination you contracted with the carrier to rent a seat on their vehicle and will use the airport services to get to the plane. To use these services you must be screened through a security checkpoint.

You do have a right not to be screened by not using the services of the air carriers and airport.

Touche'. That was a clean shot.

I hate phone marketing, junk mail and spam email.

From the LA times:

The government hasn't yet said if in this version they will store a database of travel dossiers like they planned to in CAPPS II. One of the first things that will be needed is a Privacy Act request to see if they still want to keep travel dossiers on all of us for 50 years (like CAPPS II wanted to).

It's a good sign though that they no longer seem to be talking about making the airlines put date-of-birth into PNRs.

That is no different from CAPPS II color codes, just minus the colors. Hopefully the media will be smart enough to see through this spin.

Better. Looking for terrorists instead of bank robbers, deadbeat dads, and parking tickets. But I believe they still will want to expand the program to do these things once established.

Somehow TSA still believes that commercial databases are a wealth of accurate information; maybe they are lucky enough to not receive badly mistargeted junk mail (based on those databases) at their homes, but most of us are not.

That is a substantial improvement, as such predictive systems are bound to use information the government has no business using (travel patterns, address history, travel companions, credit history, books checked out at library, etc.) and bound to create orders of magnitude more false positives than actual positives.

From TSA press release:
Yes, the public has seen the results of your "greatly expanded no-fly and selectee lists" as you have added names like Edward Kennedy (senator) and John Lewis (congressman) to the lists that already included David Nelson (actor) and Jack Baldwin (MD and WWII veteran). We are not inspired with confidence.

The only substantitive differences I see from CAPPS II are:

1) claim they will not be a full-up "papers please" checkpoint looking for law-enforcement violations

2) claim they will no longer try to predict who might be a terrorist

3) no more talk (yet) of requiring pax DOB, address, and phone on PNRs.

All are important, but the key metric is elimination of harassment due to false alarms and a quick, effective process with independent judicial appeal to clear your name. Lip service is given, but details are short.

I wonder, does Bill Scannell plan to fire up his website again? It would be great to hear from him on this new proposal.

Ownership of certain security processes does not concern me as long as they meet a certain standard and have measurable efficacy. Today, the measurability is not there and the efficacy is certainly in question as plenty of people can engineer ways around the current dog and pony show of security (especially in the key area of explosives).

It's self-explanatory (almost) -- i.e., better than today in terms of efficacy and cost-efficiency with more measurable results and a measured calculation of costs and benefits. [I believe some people will die and some property will be damaged; the only way to prevent all death and destruction is to ban/encumber life and/or wholly restrict property ownership (rights). In other words, I am ready to let myself be one of the casualties because I don't believe in draining the public coffers of tens of millions of dollars from others for my personal self-interest and don't believe in health, safety and security regardless of the price.] A better checkpoint screening for weapons and weapons components, including explosives -- on persons or in carry-ons and in cargo -- is one that is better than the current dog and pony show we have today. Today's dog and pony show I label a dog and pony show because it has done little to stop the more intelligent and more dangerous sociopaths around. It is merely rewarding them to adapt faster. Unfortunately, systems are reactive (more often than not) and individuals proactive; so in the cat and mouse game, we know who will be ahead of the curve first. And our sorry excuse for "pro-active" security is little more than a wild goose chase and a lot of jumping the gun long before an incident and all its accessories are anywhere close to being netted properly and in total.

Unlinke many here, I like the FAM program but have some reservations about it. First, the weapons need to be personalized so no one else can use them.

In my book, national security has a strict and limited definition. It's also more effective then.

Bad argument. In many jurisdictions, a cab driver can only refuse you under certain, pre-defined bases.

Your being from NYC-metro area, you should know that taxis cannot refuse most passsengers so easily. Cab drivers cannot refuse people based on ethnicity and not picking up the first passenger "just because" or for any reason not mentioned explicitly in either applicable legal, regulatory or voluntary compliance systems results (at least occassionally) in prosecution and/or penalties.

Perhaps you need a bit more insight on what exactly they authorized, under what conditions and why?

Well, people volunteer to have certain information conveyed for certain limited purposes. It's not a blank check (and many companies find that out the hard way).

I don't profess to be an expert in the matter. It is, though, a foreboding sign when the best hope American citizens have in regards to their privacy rights is EU law.


I don't disagree in principle, except that the "limited purpose" of marketing so frequently becomes so broad. My argument is that the limited purpose of checking to see whether government intelligence (is that an oxymoron?) indicates a terrorist threat is a far more compelling interest than an individual interest in a corporate marketing scheme--and, as such, it seems silly to support one but decry the other.

I'm not saying I'm not concerned about misuse of data, or of people being wrongly flagged--those should always be concerns. I don't think that threat is presently greater than the necessity of stopping known terrorist threats.

Sad but too often true. A backdoor channel to get a lot of info about yourself (for amusement purposes) is to transfer your mailing address for a given account to the EU and then use EU laws and regulations to extract information that a certain entity would never care to give you.


Understandable and reasonable, even if I disagree with portions. Government "intelligence" is increasingly questionable (as it has become increasingly politicized or become a political football) and I would rather have the government allocate resources for truly dangerous items than on trying to gamble on "identity-as-security" approaches.

He was just asking for some opinions..jeez. Would it kill you to type a sentence or two? If you don't want to answer...then don't answer. You don't have to respond with snide remarks.
FAMIAM

check your PMs.

Come on, the only yellow cabs are in Manhattan. They are too yellow to go anywhere else. OK maybe bad example but the principle was right.