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Thanatoast
Mar 19, 2004, 05:37 AM
by slashdot from yahoo
link (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=512&u=/ap/20040317/ap_on_go_co/airline_passenger_screening_3&printer=1)
emphasis mine
unassimilatible writes "The Transportation Security Administration said Wednesday it will order airlines to turn over passengers' personal records in the next couple of months to test a computerized passenger screening program that could keep dangerous people off airlines, reports Yahoo/AP. The Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II, would rank all air passengers according to the likelihood of their being terrorists. Suspected terrorists and violent criminals would be designated as red and forbidden to fly. Passengers who raise questions would be classified as yellow and would receive extra security screening. The vast majority would be designated green and allowed through routine screening. But some say the project would violate privacy rights, while others are concerned it would cost the private sector too much money. The Air Transport Association, the trade group for major airlines, has come up with seven 'privacy principles' that it says the government should follow in implementing CAPPS II."
now it's terrorists and violent criminals? what if i was arrested at a protest rally against the president for disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace? would that qualify me as a violent criminal? and what are violent criminals doing out of jail anyway? and if they'd served their time already, how can this not be a violation of their civil rights? and i hate to be the chicken little here, but if they can "redlight" violent criminals as well as terrorists now, why not non-violent criminals? why not convicted drug dealers? who's next people? and let's not forget "yellowlighting" people who ask questions. so if i think this policy is unfair or dangerous, then i am singled out for "special" attention? holy ****! the ripping sound you hear is your civil liberties being torn from your grasp. i cannot adequately describe my fear for the nation on hearing this news. could you get any more orwellian?



skunk
Mar 19, 2004, 05:59 AM
let's not forget "yellowlighting" people who ask questions. so if i think this policy is unfair or dangerous, then i am singled out for "special" attention?
And if say that I believe the information held about me is wrong, I get "special attention" for opening my mouth. Welcome to the land of the free!

Savage Henry
Mar 19, 2004, 06:17 AM
could you get any more orwellian?

Yes, they can. And they will.

We are still in the infancy of Big Brother, a kind of pseudo-dictatorship.

Desertrat
Mar 19, 2004, 09:32 AM
A quick look via Google for my name brings up my participation in a couple of pro-gun websites. Oh! Guns! Oh! Oh! Bad! Quick! Put him on the Yellow List, at least! And that from just buying a ticket.

Were it not for the fact that my son lives in Germany and I like to go over every couple of years for a visit, you'd never find me anywhere near an airport. I'm just too old to tolerate the nonsense of this new addition to our "police-state-itis".

'Rat

IJ Reilly
Mar 19, 2004, 11:25 AM
Here's a personal scary TSA story.

A year ago January I had to abandon my airplane at a SF Bay Area airport due to bad weather. The following week I booked a one-way ticket on SWA on the internet, the night before I planned to fetch it.

At the airport I went through the passenger screening as usual. On the boarding line, passengers were being pulled aside (randomly, I presume) for hand searches of their carry-ons. I was one of them. This is what I had in my briefcase: an aviation GPS, aviation charts, plotters and an airport facilities guide, and pretty much nothing else. So I'm thinking to myself, "here it goes, I'm going to back room to explain to the nice man with a badge why I'm carrying this aviation stuff." You guessed -- nope. Not a single question.

So, the TSA can't add two plus two, but they think they can calculate two plus two divided by the square root of pi. My confidence in the system grows daily...