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| Cancellation of CAPPS Signals Return to Pre-9/11 Mentality |
| 2004-08-08 |
| From The Wall Street Journal, an article by Heather MacDonald .... The administration just cancelled a passenger screening system designed to keep terrorists off planes, acceding to the demands of "privacy" advocates. ... the program's demise also signals a return to a pre-9/11 mentality, when pressure from the rights lobbies trumped security common sense. The now-defunct program, the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or Capps II, sought to make sure that air passengers are flying under their own identity and are not wanted as a terror suspect. It would have asked passengers to provide four pieces of information -- name, address, phone number and birth date -- when they make their reservation. That information would've been run against commercial records, to see if it matches up, then checked against government intelligence files to determine whether a passenger has possible terror connections. Depending on the outcome of those two checks, a passenger could have been screened more closely at the airport, or perhaps -- if government intelligence on him raised alarms -- not allowed to board. Privacy advocates on both the right and the left attacked Capps II from the moment it was announced. They called it an eruption of a police state, and envisioned a gallimaufry of bizarre hidden agendas -- from a pretext for oppressing evangelical Christians and gun owners, to a blank check for discriminating against blacks. |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #2 This system was useless as a "screening" method. Just a bad idea and money pit with abuse writ all over it. I am damm happy it's dead. |
| Posted by: FlameBait93268 2004-08-08 2:36:47 PM |
| #1 Whatever else being said, CAPPS II was like a dead raccoon under the porch. A system with little restraint on who could input into it, no central controlling authority, and no way to have erroneous information purged, is NOT a system. That nobody would take responsibility for this thing should be a major cue that there was something seriously wrong with it. In practice, it was almost like randomly prohibiting people from flying because someone, somewhere had suggested at some time that they, or somebody with a similar name, might be a problem. I believe it was even abused by some local governments to try an nick people at the airport who had outstanding traffic citations and nonsense like that. "You can't fly because you have an unpaid parking ticket." |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-08-08 1:17:33 PM |