Interesting People mailing list archives
-- more on -- Millions more travelers could be flagged for intensive airport searches
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 10:48:16 -0400
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 09:56:13 -0400 From: Barry Steinhardt <BSteinhardt () aclu org> Subject: Re: [IP] Millions more travelers could be flagged for intensive airport searches X-Sender: Bsteinhardt () exch1 aclu org To: dave () farber net Dave,I thought IP readers my be interested in the fact sheet the ACLU put together on CAPPS II for yesterday's press event The Five Problems With CAPPS II: Why the Airline Passenger Profiling Proposal Should Be Abandoned.http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=13356&c=206.Reason # 2 -- It won't work-- may be of particular interest to IP readers. Effectiveness: This System Will Not Make Us Any Safer Why build CAPPS II if it wont make us any safer?Even a known, wanted terrorist could sail right through this system simply by committing identity theft (which as we all know is all too easy today) and obtaining a false driver's license or passport (which is even easier). For example, such a terrorist might present a drivers license with their own photograph, but the name, address, phone number and DOB of an innocent person (data that for most Americans can be purchased online for about $50). Nothing in the CAPPS II program would stop such a terrorist. This system is like a Maginot line the heavily fortified defensive frontier constructed by the French before World War II, which was rendered useless when Hitlers army simply went around it. And even a tiny error rate would create huge problems. Each year, 100 million Americans fly, many of us more than once. Total passenger transactions each year have been estimated to be as high as one billion. CAPPS II would check every one of those transactions. Even if we assume an unrealistic accuracy rate of 99.9%, mistakes will be made on approximately one million transactions, and 100,000 separate individuals. Those mistakes will result in not only a lot of innocent people coming under suspicion or worse but will make it extremely hard to find the handful of real terrorists amid the ocean of false positives. While these shortcomings are being ignored now, once this system is sold to the American people, they will inevitably be used to justify demands for an airtight, cradle-to-grave, biometric national identity and tracking system that would change what it means to live in America (but in all likelihood still fail to thwart terrorism).The full event can be viewed on CSPAN at http://www.cspan.org/. Barry Steinhardt Director Technology and Liberty Program American Civil Liberties Union 125 Broad Street,NYC 10004 212 549 2508 (v) 212 549 2629 (fax) BSteinhardt () aclu org
------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
Current thread:
- -- more on -- Millions more travelers could be flagged for intensive airport searches Dave Farber (Aug 26)