U.S. to Demand Passenger Lists

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
U.S. to Demand Passenger Lists
11
Wed, 01-14-2004 - 10:21am

U.S. to Demand Passenger Lists

AFP

 



Jan. 12, 2004 — The U.S. government is pressing ahead with a controversial security program to conduct background checks and assign a color-coded risk rating to all passengers at U.S. airports, the Washington Post reported Monday.


Under the program, each passenger will be scored red, yellow or green. Red would bar the passenger from boarding, yellow would trigger additional scrutiny and green would signal a standard treatment by airport security.

The new computerized system will collect a passenger's full name, home address, telephone number, date of birth and travel itinerary, then run the information through databases to confirm passenger identity and compare it to lists of wanted criminals and suspected terrorists.


To implement the program, the Transportation Security Authority (TSA) will soon begin forcing airlines to turn over passenger reservation lists, possibly as soon as next month, the daily said.


Airlines balked at joining a testing phase of the program after privacy advocates encouraged boycotts of participating carriers, and one carrier was sued for turning passenger data over to the military.


The TSA is also to begin testing another part of the program that will allow some travelers to receive streamlined security treatment if they volunteer personal information to the government beforehand. Such passengers would be issued a "registered traveler" card to display at the airport.


Privacy and rights advocates slammed the programs as discriminatory and inefficient.


The registered traveler program will "create two classes of airline travelers," Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union told the paper, adding that terrorists could figure out how to outsmart the system.


"These kinds of dragnet systems are feel-good but cost-inefficient," said Harvard Medical School privacy policy researcher Richard Sobel.


"The government would do much better using resources to better identify people and deter people who might cause some harm than to use resources devoted to the 99 percent of people who are innocent."


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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Sun, 01-18-2004 - 2:37pm
Disgusting. We lose more and more personal freedoms everyday. Where will it all end. Who said the terroists didn't win.

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