Airline Passenger or Terrorism Suspect?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Christopher Effgen <build () gci net>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 21:00:47 -0900
To: dave () farber net
Cc: jmorris () cdt org
Subject: Airline Passenger or Terrorism Suspect?

Airline Passenger or Terrorism Suspect?

The Department of Transportation is proposing to establish a Privacy Act
System of Records, which will classify all commercial airline passengers as
suspects of terrorism and a threat to national security. The reason for
doing this is to enable the agency to collect information and conduct
background investigations of all airline passengers in a manner, which would
otherwise require a court order.

DoT is proposing that passenger's names be entered into a computer program
that will then match their name against names in law enforcement systems of
records; financial and transactional databases, public source information,
proprietary data; and be used to create risk assessment reports. When a
person is identified as being a possible suspect, in violation of any
Federal, State, territorial, tribal, local, international, or foreign law;
the information will be forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
These agencies may also access the database.  A name is not a positve means
of identification.

Federal, State or local agencies could access the database when an agency is
considering hiring or retaining an individual, issuing a security clearance,
license, contract, grant, or other benefit. Applicants will not be informed
when the database is used to deny them of any benefit or right. Applicants
will not be able to access or dispute the information, which is collected
and used against them.

This System of Records is being justified as a means to facilitate the
conduct of a risk assessment security-screening program. Yet, risk
assessment is a process applied to systems not people. The process being
proposed here is not a risk assessment process. It is a threat assessment
process.

The first step in threat assessment is to construct a list of potential
threat agents. To gauge the risk/threat of commercial air travel, we first
examine historic airline crash data. This analysis reveals that passengers
on US commercial airlines are 30 times more likely to die as a result of
accidents than from terrorism.

An examination of past acts terrorism against US commercial airliners
reveals that non-resident aliens committed all acts that resulted in death
since 1982. (There was a case of suicide involving a US citizen, a former
airline employee, who gained access to the cockpit, and killed the pilot and
copilot. In the resulting crash he and 42 others died. This was a case of
suicide.) If a threat assessment had been performed on the 9/11 terrorists,
six would have identified as not having an INS entry record, five would have
been identified as wanted for questioning connected with other terrorist
attacks or on a Customs watch list, and two for expired Visas. On this basis
we could argue that there is a justification for subjecting aliens engaging
in air travel to an INS, Visa, terrorist, and Customs watch list check, and
performing a threat analysis on these individuals, but the proposed System
of Records does not apply to aliens. Aliens are not protected by the Privacy
Act.

To understand risk/threat management we need to understand that if there is
no risk then there is no threat, and if there is no threat then there is no
risk. Risks and threats come in pairs. The issue we are concerned with here
is the risk of someone taking control over an airplane, and the threat being
the person who would engage in the act. The risk reduction measures that
were put into practice following 9/11/01, had they been implemented prior to
9/11/01, would have prevented the terrorist attacks from taking place. It is
an axiom that if there is no risk, then there is no threat. If people can
not get weapons or explosives on planes and the cockpit doors are secure,
then no matter how much a person wants to take over a plane it would be
impossible to do so.

The Department of Transportation's proposed System of Records would create
dossiers on a class of people who have no history of committing acts of
terrorism on US commercial airplanes. The result will be that perhaps
millions of people will be falsely identified as being a suspect on the
basis of their name, with no real reduction in risk/threat.

For example, named-based computer data matching is notorious for large error
rates. Studies of the use of the FBI's named-based computerized criminal
history background check system, when compared to fingerprint checks,
reveals that system falsely identifies people as having a criminal history
about as frequently it makes a correct identification. If this system of
records is established, and uses named based criminal history records as a
basis for a person being identified as a suspect, millions of law-abiding
citizens will be falsely associated with the criminal history of someone
else.

It is disingenuous to say that an individual can avoid such data collection
by simply avoiding the use of public transportation system. One might as
well say that one could avoid the results of pollution by not breathing.
Moreover, in the past, the collection of data as condition of entitlements
has been specific to the entitlement and not to a secret background check.
The combination of Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States
Constitution creates a right of individual privacy and individual security.
There has been no demonstration that circumstances exist that would warrant
destruction or impairment of that right or that the proposed rule would
likely increase public security to an extent that would warrant any
exception to the Constitutional right to privacy.

Christopher Effgen


Copies of the proposal can be downloaded in two formats:
http://www.disastercenter.com/tsa.doc

http://www.disastercenter.com/tsa.pdf

My response to the proposal can be read here:
http://www.disastercenter.com/TSA.htm


Sources:

Accidents, Fatalities, and Rates, 1982 through 2001, U.S. General Aviation

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/Table10.htm

Air Carrier Occurrences Involving Illegal Acts (Sabotage, Suicide, or
Terrorism), 1982 through 2001

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/table12.htm

Testimony of David R. Loesch, Assistant Director in Charge of the Criminal
Justice Information Services Division (or CJIS Division) of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. Name checks vs. fingerprint-based checks

http://www.house.gov/judiciary/loes0518.htm

Christopher Effgen is the owner of The Disaster Center web site. For the
past three years he has been pursuing information related to a case in which
the US Census Bureau used its privileged access to named based criminal
history data to illegally deny hundreds of thousands of people consideration
for employment.

Mr. Effgen can be reached at 907-248-8363 - Noon to 1 AM EDT



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