TSA Plans for Next Generation CAPPS: "Secure Flight"
 

Article from today's (Friday 8/27/04) Los Angeles Times by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...adlines-nation

Registration required. Try the default "cyberpunk" as both user name and password which works on many news sites that require a login. I decided not to post it here because it's a long story.

Here's the meat of the system as I see it:
* Over the next year, airlines will transmit PNR data to the feds.
* If name info is a close match to a terror/security (not garden variety criminal) database, additional PNR data will be used to decide if the passenger and the name on the list are one and the same.
* Most passengers "flagged" will be selectees, small number will be no-fly and subject to arrest.
* Some passengers will still be random selectees.
* TSA will establish an appeals process for people who believe they have been wrongly flagged.

I have to agree with the ACLU spokesman quoted in the article that this is a "step in the right direction."

Press Release

TSA To Test New Passenger Pre-Screening System

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Transportation Security Administration

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - August 26, 2004
TSA Press Office: (571) 227-2829

"Secure Flight" to be Tested Before Year's End

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) today announced it will move forward to test a new passenger-prescreening program called Secure Flight. The decision follows completion of a thorough review of the computer-assisted passenger prescreening system (CAPPS II) proposal ordered by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Tom Ridge in July. Based on the results of this review, TSA modified its earlier passenger prescreening proposal to create the new Secure Flight program.

Under Secure Flight, TSA will take over responsibility for checking airline passengers' names against terrorist watch lists – a function currently administered by each airline individually. The move will help eliminate most of the false alerts caused by the current out-dated system. When in place, Secure Flight will help move passengers through airport screening more quickly and reduce the number of individuals selected for secondary screening – while fully protecting passengers' privacy and civil liberties.

"This new system will allow Homeland Security to implement a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission – for the government to continue improving the use of ‘no-fly' and ‘automatic selectee' lists by using an expanded watch list," DHS Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security Asa Hutchinson said. "Secure Flight is a critical part of Homeland Security's overall layered strategy to secure the nation's commercial air transportation system."

"TSA is prepared to begin testing and execution of the next-generation passenger prescreening program," said Rear Admiral David M. Stone USN (Ret.), Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Transportation Security Administration. "Secure Flight will enhance security for the nation's travelers while preserving the individual freedoms of each passenger."

Significant progress has already been made by the U.S. Government by providing greatly expanded No-Fly and Selectee lists to airlines to conduct checks on their own computer systems. New names are being added every day as intelligence and law enforcement agencies submit persons for consideration. Under Secure Flight, TSA will take over responsibility for comparing Passenger Name Record (PNR) information of domestic air passengers to a greatly expanded list of known or suspected terrorists in the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) database. As the program is phased in, TSA will be able to check passenger records against watch list information not previously available to airlines.

Passengers on international flights will continue to be checked against names in the consolidated TSC database by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), through its Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS). These checks are mandated by U.S. law.

Secure Flight differs from earlier proposed systems by focusing screening efforts on looking for known or suspected terrorists, rather than using it for other law enforcement purposes. In addition, the new program will also include a redress mechanism through which people can resolve questions if they believe they have been unfairly or incorrectly selected for additional screening.

Separately, TSA will also conduct a very limited test to determine whether or not comparing passenger information to commercially available data can help to more accurately verify the identity of individuals.

Results of the testing, both of the TSC database comparisons and the use of commercial data to verify identity, will be as publicly transparent as possible without compromising national security. Testing and eventual implementation will be governed by strict privacy protections including passenger redress procedures, data security mechanisms, and limitations on use.

TSA will collect passenger data and begin testing Secure Flight within the next 30-60 days. TSA will likely move forward with implementation of the system nationally after testing is completed and the agency publishes a final Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM).

# # #

So what will this do to passengers who book at the last minute? Will there be time for the checks for them? Or is that suspicious enough to warrant automatic checking?

If there is time for "quiick checks" than there will likely be a lot of false positives. I hope the system set up to allow passengers to "clear their names" is done correctly.

CAPPS II is not dead. It's engine is included. ;)

"Daddy, tell me where you were when freedom, liberty and privacy died"?

Uh, that sounds just like CAPPS-II. Like, exactly like it. Why does calling CAPPS-II "Secure Flight" make it more acceptable?

If I take this press release at face value, it sure sounds like they're going to appropriate people's travel data, compare it to commercial databases to verify address or phone or credit card, and all without asking permission or even notifying the individuals involved that they're being investigated. How can they test Secure Flight without publishing a Privacy Act notice? Do they think something that's wrong, that's unacceptable to the public, magically becomes okay because they are only doing "a very limited test"? That's like saying it's not stealing because the thing they took only costs a few dollars.

I told you it wasn't dead :D :D :D

The government does not and has never had to notify people that they're being investigated. "Excuse me, may we investigate you?"

They're not testing it yet. The notice for the Registered Traveler pilot program hit the Federal Register about 30 days before that program began...so I would imagine this will hit the FR in the next week or two.

My question to those that abhor all the screening programs - what would, in your mind, be acceptable? Do we need any such program? If not, why not? If so, what is sufficient?

A clarification of what you mean by "all the screening programs" would be helpful since right now I don't know who abhors "all the screening programs". People abhor all the ineffective our counterproductive screening programs.

A better checkpoint screening for weapons and weapons components, including explosives, on persons or in carry-ons and in cargo would be sufficient for passengers and is my recommendation.

This is nothing more than another profiling system, and on aggregate, such programs fail miserably and create hostile parties over time (short or long) while lulling the security apparatus to sleep/false confidence.

Do a search. I'm not re-typing 3 years' worth of info just for you.

You are correct - I should have clarified. MAny people on this board dislike TSA. What is the alternative? Back to private, and if so, what standards should they be held to? Is everyone screened and, if not, why not (thinking of the old person thread)? Kids too? If not, what are the cut off ages? Do we need any "ckecklist" for non-flyers? A no-fly list?

To you specifically GU, what is a "better checkpoint" for screening weapons? How does it work? Staffed by whom? What kind of technology? Is TSA sufficient today and, if not, where are they lacking?

This is the process BEFORE boarding. Maybe we can discuss there needs to be any security AFTER boarding later.....:)

Wrong. There is travel data contained in the systems of many airlines that was collected in the E.U. Nothing distinguishes E.U. data from the rest of the records, and E.U. law says that people have to be notified of all uses to which their travel data will be put. The EU-US "agreement" you've heard so much about is directly contradictory to E.U. law, and hopefully will soon be invalidated by the EC which is hearing the matter.

There are other legal precedents which might be used and have been used to argue that CAPPS-II/Secure Flight is illegal. Since this program is identical to CAPPS-II, I'm sure that the many activists on this issue won't waste any time in bringing the arguments before a judge.

You guys are arguing different things.

Why do you feel that you are so special that you should be exempt from using the fine search features of this UBB and that everyone should have to re-type all their thoughts on this very subject just for you?

Since we have a discussion on the subject it seems appropriate to ask. If you do not feel like answering then don't.

Anyone (except Spiff) who wishes to answer I would be interested.