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CAPPS II Guidelines Released 138

Posted by michael from the hakuna-matata dept.
W33dz writes "WIRED magazine has released an article detailing the Transportation Safety Administration's latest guidelines for the second-generation Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II. As outlined in a notice to be published Friday in the Federal Register, CAPPS II will rate every passenger by checking dates of birth, home addresses and phone numbers against commercial databases and the government's terrorist watch lists. This is a pullback from the original plan which called for wide dissemination of data including financial and medical history."
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CAPPS II Guidelines Released More

CAPPS II Guidelines Released

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  • Screw public aviation! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Thinkit3 ( 671998 ) * on Saturday August 02, 2003 @02:55AM (#6594609)
    Stupid stewardesses who assume a wristwatch can doom an aircraft at takeoff and landing. Can't bring a dang fingernail clipper onboard. How about geek airlines? Robot attendents, Internet access on every seat, and no problem with bringing any weapon on board (bring a working laser blaster and get a free flight!).

  • Excellent! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Scoria ( 264473 ) <slashmail AT initialized DOT org> on Saturday August 02, 2003 @02:57AM (#6594612) Homepage
    Are you looking forward to your inevitable cavity search? ;-)

  • Good thing, too... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) * <mrpuffypants@@@gmail...com> on Saturday August 02, 2003 @03:03AM (#6594628)
    This is a pullback from the original plan which called for wide dissemination of data including financial and medical history.

    Good thing, too! The last thing I need is the flight attendants laughing at me when I board the plane because they can see my bank account and medical "records."

  • False positives (Score:5, Insightful)

    by in7ane ( 678796 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @03:03AM (#6594629)
    How are they planning to deal with the large numbers of false positives a system like this will generate? In my experience when you try to predict such low probability events as being a terrorist (no matter what you 'should' believe, even 100,000 terrorists in the US is only 0.0004%) the number of false positives far exceeds the number of true ones (or even the potentially true ones if you picked them all up).

    And I really don't think a 'fly' list is the solution - if it automatically lets you fly, and considering that suicide bombers rarely have a history, it would be too obvious a back door.
    • How are they planning to deal with the large numbers of false positives a system like this will generate? In my experience when you try to predict such low probability events as being a terrorist (no matter what you 'should' believe, even 100,000 terrorists in the US is only 0.0004%) the number of false positives far exceeds the number of true ones (or even the potentially true ones if you picked them all up).

      Your terrorist estimate is way too low. Remember Bush's (paraphrased) statement: "If you don'

    • Re:False positives (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 02, 2003 @06:30AM (#6594938)
      Generating false positives is most likely the entire point of the system. It shows that something is being done, and is very visable. In short they are treating this as a PR problem and attacking it with propaganda and advertising. What they should be doing is treating this as the security problem that it is. There are about 300 million people in the United States, together with internation visitors who must be somehow classified by a system like this to ascertain what level of threat they pose. The correct answer to the question of how to do this is that you do not do this. The problem is intractable. What should probably be done is to limit the potential security risk that any individual can actually present when flying on a commercial airline. Just to take one example, you could isolate the passenger cabin physically from the cockpit. This reduces the chances of a succesful hijacking monumentally.
      • Bravo. Finally somebody gets it. The real purpose of the Department of Homeland Appearance of Security is to make life very inconvenient for as many people as possible because if it's inconvenient then it must be really worthwhile.

        It's the same reason that people think that the more unpleasant a medicine is, the more it must be doing. You see the same exact mindset in corporate IT security operations.

        Now, the real question is why Tom Ridge was idiotic enough to take a job. While nothing happens, he ge
    • The government cannot protect you from terrorists. The government knows this. The War on Terror was not created to protect America from terrorists. The War on Terror is a PR exercise to justify a 'forward-leaning' expansionist foreign policy.

      Read 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' on the Project for a New American Century website. This site was co-written by people currently in the administration and explains the ideas behind the policy.

      If you still doubt that these plans pre-date 9-11, read this. [bbc.co.uk]

      Sorry for

      • The War on Terror is a PR exercise to justify a 'forward-leaning' expansionist foreign policy.

        Interesting, as the powers that be stand to gain much $$$ from the new "security" implementations required to wage the WOT (cf, "War on Drugs").

        We are very, very lucky in that the terrorists are a magnitude level higher in stupidity than the government and apparently much more incompetent. Consider that with CAPPS II, it is actually quite easy to circumvent the system [mit.edu] and get on the plane. The fact that the terro

    • Re:False positives (Score:4, Funny)

      by Dausha ( 546002 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:05AM (#6595215) Homepage

      . . . even 100,000 terrorists in the US is only 0.0004% . . .

      Which brings me to a rather insightful premise. Why don't we just have each passenger provide his occupation and purpose of his trip? If he puts "terrorist," then we know he may be a threat. If he puts "to do Allah|God|Limbaugh's Will," then we know he needs to be pulled off the plane. Because, not every terrorist is going to hijack any plane they travel on. Some need to make it to terrorist training camps, or Redmond, WA.

    • FYI, 100,000 people is 0.04% of the population. 1000 people is 0.0004%. You've made the common soapbox mistake of thinking that 1% is the entire population in order to make you're argument sound more convincing.

      The sad part isn't that so many on Slashdot have such little understanding of math; rather, the sad part is that so many of them are completely unaware of their shortcoming.
    • Do you know how many false positives are generated using the current system? It's obvious you don't. There isn't a green/yellow/red flagging system with CAPPS1 as there will be with CAPPS2, however, there is a system that decides whether a passenger will not fly, will fly with additional screening, and will fly with normal screening. As it is now, about 1 in 1000 passengers will be flagged "no fly." And practically all of these are false positives. So, about 0.001%...much greater than your extremely high es
    • Simple. They'll quickly start ignoring the system and just body cavity search anyone who "looks suspicious."

  • Mod me down if you like, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BobTheLawyer ( 692026 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @03:09AM (#6594639)
    ... this all seems quite sensible.

    It's ridiculous that at the moment more stringent checks are made on someone applying for a credit card than on someone boarding a plane.
    • Why is it ridiculous? I'm not asking the Airline to loan me money, I am PAYING them to move me from point A to point B. They don't need to F'ing know if I have bad credit, or if I don't live where I used to any more. They don't have the RIGHT to request such useless information. Sure I don't mind them checking my name against a suspected terrorist list, but I have a good idea that if there is a terrorist they will not use a name known by the FBI. This is just plain bullshit and does NOTHING but give a false

  • Bring it on!!! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Like my boss said when they started piss testing us at work last week, "Bring it on! I've got nothing to hide."

    Fuck freedom or privacy, right? If you even question it, you're obviously hiding something or doing drugs or what not.
    • Oh, whoopee. Yes, let's fuck freedom. Let's start a witch hunt war on terror and start an inquisition protecting citizens from said terrorists.

      And as for the urine samples: I have never done drugs. Ever. And I would never submit to a urine sample, even if it cost me my job. Why? Because I'm a goddamn fucking Americain and I will never forget the sacrifices made by the people that came before me to earn this freedom. If you want to fuck freedom, you're no better than the asses that flew the planes into th

      • Re:Bring it on!!! (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I hear you. I'm the original poster. That was "sarcasm".

        I cant even complain about the drug testing because it makes me "guilty" to the asswipes who say "bring it on, i've got nothing to hide."

        Hey, why should we complain if they want to sort through our body fluids to verify our habits in our off time. (more sarcasm)

        Personally, I can't friggin believe it. If they think a TELECOMMUTING PROGRAMMER ON WEED is bad, lets see what an incensed TELECOMMUTING DRUNK AND ANGRY PROGRAMMER is like. Oh, but alchohol i
        • Weee. Sarcasm. Right. Joke. Funny.
          Note to self: don't post while sleep deprived.
          I cant even complain about the drug testing because it makes me "guilty" to the asswipes who say "bring it on, i've got nothing to hide."
          Somewhere along the line, we lost the idea of "Innocent until proven guilty." And no one seems to even vaugely recall the phrase "beyond a shadow of a doubt."
        • Well, for the most part, I agree with you, so long as there's no chance of injuring other people.

          I fully support drug testing in any occupation where peoples' lives are in someone's hands, eg, police, pilots, doctors & medical personnel, people operating heavy machinery on construction sites, etc.

          If you wanna smoke up at home then go in to your 9-5 office cubicle job, good on ya.

          If you wanna smoke up at home, then fly a plane I'm a passenger in, or be cutting me open for surgery, etc. - you better be
    • I applied for a job with GTE in Floridia. They did the piss test before the interview.

      I got a call a few days later saying they lost the results and need me to come back for another test. GTE was even willing to pay for another flight down for the piss test. I should have had them send me the palen ticket and not shown up for the test. Free vaction to FLa.

      Damn they are incompentent.

  • US security regarding travel is getting absurd (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @03:12AM (#6594646) Homepage Journal
    Recently I went on a little Greyhound bus trip across half the US. During reboarding procedures at one of my stops, there was a complete inspection of all the carry on luggage. Being over 24 hours sleep deprived and these security procedures making me later than I already was, I was more than uncooperative. As a response to my inquiry, this goes on randomly across bus stations across the US, according to the inspector. After (what seemed like) a lengthy inspection of my, and all other passenger's carry on luggage, we boarded the bus and off we went.

    What's the point? This disturbs me. I can see why people might be getting a bit paranoid with air planes and all, but buses?! What the hell can I do with a hijacked bus in the middle of Missouri? Ram the bus into the giant arch in St. Louis? The US is becoming way too paranoid about terrorists these days.
    • Well, the most paranoid part of me dreams up something like this:

      You have a bomb on board, as well as a weapon. Now you have a very large vehicle as well as several hostages. Now, while you may not be able to bring down a large building, you could cause major damage if you rammed something, and a bus would be hard to stop with a roadblock, as it's so massive.

      What makes them think you would have added a bomb during that stop is beyond me. Seem more sensable to warm of the search, as them most people wil

    • Re:US security regarding travel is getting absurd (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ameoba ( 173803 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @03:24AM (#6594671)
      Inspecting luggage on a Greyhound sounds more like a War on Drugs thing than a War on Terrorism thing. The end result's the same (you're pissed and nobody's really any safer), but...

    • Re:US security regarding travel is getting absurd (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nsample ( 261457 ) <nsample.stanford@edu> on Saturday August 02, 2003 @03:44AM (#6594706) Homepage

      The point is *not* to hijack the bus and crash it into anything. Who wants to commandeer a bus, of all things? It's hardly an effective weapon.

      On the other hand, ask any Israeli why you search the bus. Take off your 9/11 blinders: terrorism isn't about killing people with vehicles. It's about instilling TERROR. Imagine what happens when they blow up a "bus in the middle of Missouri". It never was about hijacking; that was just a means to an end.
      • Imagine what happens when they blow up a "bus in the middle of Missouri"

        I'm imagining a 15 second sound bite on CNN?

        Also imagining maybe a 1/16th page article in the "C" section of the local newspaper, combined with a map of the US, indicating where Missouri is... ;P

        N.

      • Re:US security regarding travel is getting absurd (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @05:01AM (#6594822) Homepage
        Imagine what happens when they blow up a "bus in the middle of Missouri


        A few dozen people die. People freak out for a week or so wondering if there will be more bus bombings. Then they realize that there aren't, and are quite relieved if this is the best Al-Queda can come up with then this terrorism thing is licked (And no, I'm not implying it is, or would be). Sorry, but a bus bombing would be a pretty weak follow up to taking down two buildings and part of the Pentagon. I think Al-Queda would try to kill more people than say Great White killed with a sparkler.

        The bus bombings work in Israel because you have a large amount of guys willing to blow themselves up in Israel. People get scared if busses are blowing up every week. Suicide bombers are a lot more rare and and "valuable" in the US, so they certainly wouldn't be wasted on blowing up busses.
        • Could you shed some light on why "Suicide bombers are a lot more rare and valuable in the US"?

          And if they are not what would stop the number of (bus) to go up?

          • Re:US security regarding travel is getting absurd (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @06:09AM (#6594913) Homepage
            The US isn't currently occupying and building settlements in a neighboring... uh... country? occupied territory? like Israel is. Israel also depends on the Palestinians for a large part of its economy (and workforce), so it's not just a simple matter of restricting travel.

            In other words the people that are most pissed off at the US live fairly far away from the US (and not on a border country), and live in another country (and not an occupied territory). Having large numbers of them enter into the US is thus difficult.

            The people most pissed of at Israel live within the occupied terrories, where border crossing into Israel is easy. Even if you aren't allowed to cross at the official border crossings, it isn't that difficult to cross elsewhere, to the point where they're building a frickin wall around the occupied territories to try to keep them out.

            Thus, getting people willing to commit acts of terror into the US is much harder than getting them into Israel. Therefore there are far less of them in the US than in Israel.
      • The point is *not* to hijack the bus and crash it into anything. Who wants to commandeer a bus, of all things? It's hardly an effective weapon.

        On the other hand, ask any Israeli why you search the bus. Take off your 9/11 blinders: terrorism isn't about killing people with vehicles. It's about instilling TERROR. Imagine what happens when they blow up a "bus in the middle of Missouri". It never was about hijacking; that was just a means to an end.
        You can pack way more explosive in a minivan then in your luc
    • Evidently somebody watched Speed once too many times.
    • I can see why people might be getting a bit paranoid with air planes and all, but buses?! What the hell can I do with a hijacked bus

      Didn't you see speed?

      It's OK though. Neo will save the day.

  • Fine, Go ahead. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by imag0 ( 605684 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @03:17AM (#6594655) Homepage
    I have flown one time since the attacks and it ended up being a living hell of rooting through my stuff (carry-on and my luggage), pulling me aside (twice!) to frisk me, shoes off and scanned, nothing but a big hassle and a major irritation.

    Oh, and watch it if you're carrying an iBook. I guess since it looks different they will want to open it up and play with it while people with 'normal' laptops just walk on without a second glance.

    The whole reaming out convinced me it was worthless to spend my hard earned money to walk up and get treated like a criminal. I quit flying that day and will never step foot on another plane for the rest of my life. I drive everywhere on vacation now, stop where I want to, eat when I want to, carry on what I want to and have the peace of mind knowing there's not some government asshat sniffing through my b0xx0rz or looking up my personal information just to appease Washington.

    I feel for the men, women and children (!) who really have no choice and have to be subjected to this fisaco in the name of security. Take a stand if you can and drive instead of feeding this monster. Vote with your dollar.

    / rant off

    • Re:Fine, Go ahead. (Score:3, Informative)

      by rritterson ( 588983 ) *
      Sure, consume more gas per person, adding more CO and nitrous oxides to the enviorment.

      What would you like? Allow everyone unrestricted access? Or would you prefer some sort of automatic discrimination at the gate?

      Yet, it's only the disgrunted people who hold up the line. It pissed me off when someone goes through security in a fit because they have to take off his/her shoes. Normally I can get through the checkpoint at SFO in 5 minutes.
      • Yet, it's only the disgrunted people who hold up the line. It pissed me off when someone goes through security in a fit because they have to take off his/her shoes. Normally I can get through the checkpoint at SFO in 5 minutes.

        And my brother can't get through the gates at Lambert in less than an hour, and most likely will have to take a connector flight where he will get harassed again. If it's a quick stop, most likely he will miss his flght, and when he does finally get onto another flight after hasslin
    • Haven't you heard, driving and therefore using up gas funds terrorism.
    • "you are using more gas, funding terrorism" -- of course I am, seeing that we are still ass buddies with the country the majority of the terrorists come from. Jesus H. Christ man. You know this.

      "it's only the disgrunted people who hold up the line" -- Disgruntled? or people becoming slowly aware that their tax dollars are paying for the idiots reaming through their stuff, asking personal question, or taking a peek at their criminal history "just in case"?

      To me, I see it as damage. Like any good TCP/IP pac
    • I quit flying that day and will never step foot on another plane for the rest of my life.

      I hope you don't live in Hawaii.

      Er...

      Nevermind.
    • "I quit flying that day and will never step foot on another plane for the rest of my life."

      Oh the bright side, this'll cut the aviation pollution problem, and it'll completely screw the (aerospace-based parts of) the US economy.

      Way to go, guys. Who needed a free country anyway?
    • I have resolved that unless it involves crossing the Mississippi river or an ocean, I would drive instead.
      Advantages include:
      • I get to eat the meals of my choice, when I feel like eating, not when the stewardess decides I should scarf my half-frozen chicken plank down (I understand there's no meal service at all on post 9/11 flights - a step up in flight service, as far as I'm concerned)
      • I get to listen to my music as loud as I damn well please
      • Not getting groped by small Hispanic women (Boston, '98), bal
  • When will these guys learn that the harder they try to make me feel like the airline is a safe thing, the less I trust them to do their job - which is to cart me across the continent; pronto.

    Now I'm all for planes not blowing up, but these security measures have gone too far and, in my opinion, don't seem to offer any significant benefit other to increase the racial divides between humanity at a time when we should be attempting to come to a common ground.

    • This has nothing to do with planes not blowing up. This has to do with a crashing economy. Listen to the politicos and other government functionaries that ramble on about air security. What they always say is that "we need to make people feel safer about flying" or words to that effect. Not make flying actually safer ... they can't realistically do that. What they can do is make us feel safer, so that we'll board those planes, spend our money, and continue to do our business.

      I agree with you that ali
      • I know 40 Aussies that went through SARS HK just because there are too many horror stories about people from a country (that happens to be the US's best ally) get treated like shit by the US. I figure the people I know is about $40,000 or a typical airline employee pay for a year. If the Aussies as telling the US travel business to F*ck off, then the US travel industry has as major problem.

        Also why do airline tickets have the plane depatrure time? There are only two people on the plane that care what ti

  • Finally... a way out. (Score:4, Funny)

    by ameoba ( 173803 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @03:21AM (#6594663)
    Now I can refuse to fly, on ideological grounds, and not have to deal with flying to visit the family for the holidays.
    • Be careful... that plan could backfire. You might end up with relatives flying to you... sleeping in your house, eating your food, and still irritating the hell out of you - but at your expense ;)
  • Honestly, I think that the government has bailed out the airline industry enough times to make me think that the two are becoming pretty much one entity. Think about it... federal funds are propping them up, federal enforment agents have been sent in to help out with the so-called security... now the government wants to use thier new asset to find persons of interest to them. Now, I say persons of interest, because we all know this "terrorist" excuse is just a load of bullshit that the government is using
    • Individual human beings may and I say may, act on a moral, or at least ethical, basis. No government should be depended upon to act in such a manner, especially when such behavior is diametrically opposed to the acquisition of power.

      The essence of morality is that we don't always do what is in our own personal best interests, that we do look out for the other guy. The Constitution of the United States was a remarkably effective attempt to impose a rational moral code upon the fundamentally amoral (not
  • I do believe the terrorists from 9-11 arrived in the U.S. because of a severely flawed student visa system.

    Instead of anally reaming U.S. citizens flying to see Grandma on Labor Day, why not fix the problem before it arrives. I cannot see how "terrorists" just magically appear on flights from D.C. to New York, without doing something first to get there. Like flight training in the U.S.. Every attempted terrorist attack in the past two years hasn't been by somebody that just decided to go on a plane and b

  • And they wonder why nobody wants to fly anymore??? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by deranged unix nut ( 20524 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @03:48AM (#6594708) Homepage
    I've had it with all of this paranoia, I am just not going to fly ever again!

    With this much harassment, is it any wonder why fewer people want to travel and why the already failing airlines are asking for bailouts?

    If I didn't need to arrive 2 hours early to be scanned, searched, remove my shoes, wait in line, wait in line, and wait in line, then be searched, searched, and searched again, it might be faster and easier to go home to visit the family by airplane, but as it is now it is easier and cheaper to spend the extra 4 hours and DRIVE!

    The passengers will never again allow terrorists to crash an airplane into something, so terrorists have nothing to gain in trying the same scenario again. Let's get over the paranoia, take some personal responsibility and use common sense for our own security, and understand that if we want freedom we need to accept a certain amount of risk!
    • Exactly. I only fly for business, and I avoid even that when I can.
    • "The passengers will never again allow terrorists to crash an airplane into something, so terrorists have nothing to gain in trying the same scenario again."

      I agree with you for the most part, except for this bit about how people will never allow it to happen again. What if terrorists smuggle guns on. What if they shoot everybody before they crash the plane into a building because they know the passengers would try to do something?

      • A couple thoughts:

        1) Just because you put a bullet in a person doesn't mean that they drop dead instantly, despite what the movies show.

        2) Bullets tend to pierce the skin of the airplane, depressurizing the airplane, making it very hard to fly, and increasing the risk of damage to the structure of the plane.

        3) Concern for life - once people know that you are going to turn the airplane into a bomb and that they are going to die anyway, but if they don't try something then more people will die, the concern

  • Pullback (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Halo1 ( 136547 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @03:49AM (#6594710)
    This is a pullback from the original plan which called for wide dissemination of data including financial and medical history.
    Of course it is. That's how they are attempting to make the new plan sound reasonable, because it's so much less worse than the previous one. And it seems they're succeeding...
    • Old technique. Attorneys use it when filing lawsuits, asking for a billion dollars for a cup of spilled coffee. Makes the million bucks or so they actually get seem very reasonable in comparison, even it it is still way out of line with the crime.
      • Before you talk about the McDonald's coffee case, go learn the facts of the case [centerjd.org]. It was a perfect example of the tort system FINALLY bringing relief to a corporation that was knowingly engaging in dangerous behaviour.
        • You missed the point, I'm afraid. I honestly don't care who was at fault in the case since it was irrelevant to my comment. I was only pointing out the tactic of suing for some outrageous amount of money, knowing full well that the actual award (if any) would be much lower. This has the effect of a. making the claimed offense seem much more serious that it is prior to going to court and b. making the actual award seem very small, even though it may still be ridiculous.
          • I didn't miss the point.

            I just wanted to let you know that by using the McDonald's coffee case as an example, you were refuting your argument, since your example was, in actuality, a situation where there was a harm caused by willful negligence.

            • Sure you did. I was merely commenting on a common legal tactic, which has nothing to do with the validity of any particular case. And yes, the woman's attorneys did ask for a damage award from McDonald's that far exceeded the actual take.

              Anyway, 'nuff said on that subject.
              • You should read the link, when you're busy complaining about people who don't get it.

                If you had, you'd realize that she had asked for $20,000 to cover the costs associated with third-degree burns on 16 percent of her budy, skin grafting, therapy and long-term disability. McDonald's told her to fuck off. THEN they asked for more money, since McDonald's was behaving in a completely intolerable manner.

                Anyway, eat a bag of dicks.

    • The link to the claimed original article does not mention health or medical records. That notwithstanding....

      Going looking at medical records seems to me might lead to a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act [hhs.gov] (HIPPA), which included provisions

      designed to encourage electronic transactions and also required new safeguards to protect the security and confidentiality of health information. The final regulation covers health plans, health care clearinghouses, and those health

  • Ask for a pony (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ambush ( 120586 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @03:56AM (#6594721)
    Now how does that old saying go?

    Oh yes... if you want a puppy, start out by asking for a pony.

    Of course, this 'puppy' will no doubt grow into quite a large bull-mastif. *sigh*

  • This is just the beginning. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As outlined in a notice to be published Friday in the Federal Register, CAPPS II will rate every passenger by checking dates of birth, home addresses and phone numbers against commercial databases and the government's terrorist watch lists. This is a pullback from the original plan which called for wide dissemination of data including financial and medical history."

    Yup and after a couple of years they'll slip in the 'financial and medical history' and you'll never no the difference.

    I call it privacy r

  • Airport "security" is just reasurance. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ezraekman ( 650090 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @04:24AM (#6594769) Homepage

    All of these added precautions are not intended to make travel more secure. They are intended to make travel feel more secure.

    I have a friend who is a project manager for a major X-ray scanner vendor. He handles installations many major airports worldwide, including SFO and Oakland in the SF bay area. In a moment of ire at all of the red tape he's had to deal with, he informed me that 30% of all bags checked in at the counter are never checked. They are not scanned, X-rayed or visually inspected. You check them, and they are tagged, accepted, and loaded. That's it.

    I wanted to verify this for myself. I fly quite a bit these days, so I've engaged a number of airport screeners and TSA reps in conversation. I just ask them how their day is going, and mention offhand how unfortunate that they have to be under so much stress, when such a large number of baggage goes unchecked, and when it's really just a feel-good measure for the American public. If the screener I'm speaking with is in a good mood (or is just happy to not be dealing with another disgruntled passenger), the answer is almost always "Yeah, I know. It's stupid, but that's the job." Most of the white-shirted TSA folks seem to know better than to affirm that, but I've even tripped up a couple of them recently.

    All of this extra screening does not stop serious, hard-core terrorists from taking control of our planes. It does not stop assassins from planting explosives. With the verification techniques displayed by all of the security personnel during my last four or five flights, it is clear to me that a quickly forged identity card left in one's wallet and a mocked-up e-mail itinerary will suffice to get you past the gate. So-called "random" searches and screenings are usually generated by certain flags: infrequent flyers, one-way tickets, and the like. I was recently flagged for a "random" screening, based on the fact that I had booked a one-way ticket. But since I had flown three other flights with this company, I was excepted.

    Surgical steel will not set off the metal detectors, even the super-sensitive ones used in the wands. $20,000 could easily pay for a quick surgery and enough plastic explosive to take out a plane. Triple that amount if the surgeons do a good job. That's chump change to a dictator with a grudge. The electronics need only be made of surgical steel, and the chemicals need only need be buried in flesh to avoid a secondary alert. The trigger could be something as innocuous as a two-way pager or a cell phone. Weapons can easily be hidden inside the cases of laptops, if properly shaped and disguised. I know all of this because, with the exception of explosives and weapons, I have carried all of the rest on board myself.

    If someone was determined enough, planned ahead, and had a decent bankroll, they would not be stopped by all of this "security". Only a complete moron of a terrorist would get tripped up by it. These new measures are not intended to stop terrorists. By forcing the American public to submit to all of these checks, they convince us that "if we're being inconvenienced this much, no terrorist could possibly get through now". And do you know what? The government is right. The American public does not want to know. I've started conversations with several friends and relatives about this very subject. The moment any question of real security enters the conversation, I'm told "I don't want to know; I just want to feel safe". That's a direct quote.

    People truly are sheep. Sheep that want to be led. Sheep who not only don't realize what's really happening to their rights, but that wouldn't really care if they did.

    • Amen, brother. I actually got in a pretty big fight with one of my friends over restrictions on small airplanes. I was pointing out that the logic of the regulations was completely flawed, and achieved no REAL security. All it did was inconvenience, embarrass, and in some cases finish the career of, local pilots.
      The end result of the conversation was her getting really upset, telling me I was "insensitive", and that "everybody knows little planes are dangerous".
      The ID requirement while boarding accomplis

  • Where will the data come from and when? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phr1 ( 211689 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @04:35AM (#6594786)
    I've never been asked for my home address or DOB when buying a plane ticket. If the purchase is on someone else's credit card (e.g. it's for work), my address isn't connected with the ticket at all. On boarding, they look at my ID but they don't currently write down any of the data. Are they going to start doing that, and need online realtime access to some terror database? That will make the existing boarding hassles so much worse.

    Any idea when this crap is supposed to start?

  • CAPPS II (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The New Plan slogan:

    "CAPPS II - It's Double Plus Good !!"

  • It's late and this system is (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PotatoHead ( 12771 ) <doug@NoSpAM.opengeek.org> on Saturday August 02, 2003 @07:16AM (#6595002) Homepage Journal
    just not going to do us any good.

    If somebody wants to die to cause some damage to the US, then they have a high likelyhood of doing it.

    The ratio of terrorists compared to good people is too low to allow any reasonable accuracy no matter what the predictive system.

    What's worse is the engineering of possible weapons will make the already low rates worse. They can't check for what was just invented can they?

    The land of the free was formed with some pretty strong responses to threats.

    Personally, I would rather see more of that, than attacks on our own people.

    I realize the world is changing and that information systems can be helpful, but we must balance our hard won freedoms and rights at the same time. If we lock things down to the point where potential terrorists cannot move freely, given their low numbers doesn't that mean none of us can have our freedom either? If this cannot be the case, then they will have won no matter how many are killed or caught.

    Most of what I value about America is being eroded away under the mask of security. Security for whom? I feel a heck of a lot more insecure now than I did 10 years ago. It's not the terror doing it either.

    How many of you feel the same?

  • Dear God, do they even read what they write? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @07:19AM (#6595009) Homepage

    CAPPS II will [reduce] the number of people who [are] are misidentified as potential terrorists.

    How can you correctly identify "potential" terrorists? This is meaningless "brown alert" blurb. You either are or you aren't. What exactly is the penalty for being one? How can you prove that you're not a "potential" terrorist? Is a "potential" terrorist different from a "suspected" terrorist [freetotravel.org]?

    Look, it's a perfectly simple proposition. How many actual terrorists has CAPP I caught, and how many actual terrorists will CAPP II catch? "Potential" my huge hairy arse.

  • The official notice in the Federal Register is here [gpo.gov].
  • From the article:

    "On the one hand, we want people with outstanding warrants to be caught," said Dempsey. "On the other hand, we have not been a checkpoint society. We will fundamentally change the nature of our society if we start exploiting our society's gates for general law enforcement."

    We are now a checkpoint society. Driving a car? We'll just stop everyone to make sure noone is drunk, and while we're at it, we'll check all your papers and ask you where you are going etcetera, abusing fourth amend

  • So if a passenger brings a gun on a plane... (Score:3, Funny)

    by AntiOrganic ( 650691 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:59AM (#6595369) Homepage
    They've busted two CAPPS?

  • Two letters... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jhoffoss ( 73895 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @01:48PM (#6596136) Journal
    After the initial announcement of this plan, I wrote two letters, one to my Senator, Norm Coleman and the other to my Representative, Martin Sabo. I received a letter back from Sabo (ranking member of Homeland Security subcommittee) stating he had introduced an amendment requiring two reviews, one by the General Accounting Office before more funding can be appropriated, the other review directed the National Academy of Sciences to study the CAPPS II proposal to recommend modifications to minimize or eliminate adverse effects on civil liberties and privacy. Because of these, the bill was required to be considered by the full house, not just a committee.

    Coleman's letter reported the bill has been reduced in the information utilized (as outline in the story) and information on any passenger is supposed to be purged from the system shortly after his travel is over. This should ideally minimize the amount of data at risk should the system be compromized.

    I was glad to see Sabo actually concerned. Coleman's letter was worthless, basically saying "I agree, privacy=good, data collection=bad, but I'm not doing anything about it."

    • There supposedly safeguards put in place to both reduce misidentification (i.e. red-flagging someone with the same name as any person on the watch-list) and provide some form of appeal/correction into the system to avoid future misidentification. Whether this really changes anything is anyone's call.

  • Given the ease of constructing false identities, I would be surprised if someone doesn't make a good business out of creating an entry on this list which will trip up a victim regularly. Would be a great harassment technique for businesses to use on competitors' CEOs or anyone else who is not a celebrity but needs to fly frequently.
  • I've been doing a fair amount of flying this summer for various reasons, and if anything, these enhanced "security measures" do nothing but put me on edge. On a trip to France, a friend of mine, who is about as innocuous-looking as they come, got searched almost every place we went with security checks, both in the US and in France. On a family trip to visit my grandparents in South Dakota, I was pulled aside to be 'wanded,' and despite the jewelry I wore, you know the only two things that made that wand

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