Color-coding Americans: Rating your Threat as a Terrorist

If the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has its way, Americans planning to travel by air will soon be color-coded for their risk of being terrorists.
If you‘re color-coded green -- or “low risk“ -- you‘ll be able to pass through airport security with the current level of scrutiny and shoe-shuffling. If you‘re a yellow -- for “unknown risk“ -- you‘ll get increased attention. And if you‘re a red -- or “high risk“ -- you‘ll most likely be pulled aside for an interview and extra search by airport security officers.
The proposed computer screening program, called CAPPS II, has got civil libertarians and airlines in an uproar over its potential abuse and invasion of privacy.
CAPPS II stands for “Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System II.“ Using passenger names, addresses, date of birth, phone numbers and travel itinerary, CAPPS II will compare your information to that of secret government databases in hopes of discovering connections to terrorist organizations. For the most part, the Washington Post reports, the Transportation Security Administration will be simply checking names of passengers against “watch lists“ of terrorist suspects.

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS
The problem for critics of the program is that American citizens won‘t know what their threat level is and there will be no way of appealing if you‘re labeled a hot “red“ due to a bureaucratic bungle or computer mix-up. Plus, who will decide what constitutes a “threat“?
“...travelers will have no way of knowing why they are on a list, and the TSA has given no indication that they will have a means of protesting,“ notes a Jan. 21 editorial in the Washington Post. “According to a U.S. counterterrorism expert, the only names on the list will be those of ‘people known to be or to have been involved in activities related to terrorism.‘ This is a pretty broad definition, and one that could come to include those ‘under suspicion‘ as well.“
As one example of how such a system could be misued, consider that Martin Luther King was considered a very serious threat to the FBI and the White House in 1967-‘68. Would King -- now canonized as a civil saint with a national holiday -- have been allowed to fly back then if such a “threat“ level system had been in place?

PRIVACY PROBLEMS
Supercomputers will be used to screen the 612 million or so passengers who fly in the U.S. each year. The problem for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is that the system will “judge Americans in secret,“ creating yet another attack on the privacy of U.S. citizens with institutionalized government spying.
“CAPPS II poses a huge threat to Americans’ privacy, and must be stopped,“ states the ACLU. “The biggest problem with CAPPS II is that, simply put, we have no idea what it will do.“
The ACLU notes that “risk scores“ for Americans will be “based on information from unknown sources that will include shadowy intelligence and law enforcement databases and any other data sources that the TSA decides it would like to collect about you.  TSA personnel have issued public assurances that the system will not rely upon medical or financial data, but when it comes to what’s in writing the TSA specifically exempts itself from having to publish the ‘sources of records‘ upon which the system will draw.“
Airlines, including Delta and JetBlue, have balked at sharing passenger information with the TSA, and Northwest is currently under fire for having shared the private information of 10.9 million passengers with the agency on a secret test project following the 9/11 attacks.

IDENTITY THEFT
The ACLU claims that the computer system won‘t deter terrorists, who can easily create false identities through forged documents or identity theft. There are also concerns over TSA plans to expand CAPPS II to screen truckers, transportation workers and railroad conductors. If so, this would advance a culture of government surveillance in America which rouses notions of Big Brother from the novel “1984.“
Airlines may be required to turn over passenger information to the TSA as early as next month, reports the Washington Post. But the Post also notes that the program “has sparked so much controversy among both liberal and conservative groups that the TSA has struggled to get it going.“ Whether color-coding will fly with Americans remains to be seen.

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SIDEBAR (RFID Graphic): How RFIDs work. Courtesy of http://www.transponder.co.za/tech.htm

Radio Frequency Identification Chips: The new plan to spy on your every move

Soon, corporations, marketing firms and the government will be able to track you everywhere you go using Radio Frequency Identification Chips (RFIDs) which are now in mass production.
RFIDs are microscopic computer chips as small as a grain of sand. Manufacturers are placing them on postage stamp-sized labels to track the movements of consumers, attaching them to products ranging from clothing to razor blades and automobiles. Wal-Mart, the world‘s largest retailer, plans to use them to track products inside its stores.
The European Central Bank is also investigating the possibility of weaving RFIDs inside the fabric of Euros, the currency used throughout Europe. Bills containing RFIDs could be used to track terrorist cash, money launderers, counterfeiters and drug money.
Critics of RFIDs say they will create a marketing nightmare, intruding on the privacy of consumers. As an example, consider the talking ads in the science fiction film, “Minority Report,“ which besieged Tom Cruise with personalized messages everywhere he went. Critics also worry that RFIDs will be misused by agencies such as Homeland Securities or the military to turn America into an ultra-surveillance police state.
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