Senate Wants Oversight Of Capps Ii Program
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has called for congressional oversight of the Transportation Security Administration’s proposed Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II).
Wyden also led the legislation that cancelled funding for the Total Information Awareness project because of privacy concerns. His motive is the same in this instance, and he wants Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to report to Congress about how CAPPS II will work before being allowed to proceed.
CAPPS II would require travelers to submit their name, phone number, and birth date upon purchase of an airline ticket. That information would be checked against commercial and government databases and passengers would be assigned a green, yellow, or red score based on criminal, credit, banking, and other historical data.
Those scores would then be encoded onto the passenger’s ticket and trigger specific actions when the plane gets ready to board. Wyden has asked Secretary Tom Ridge to submit a report detailing how the data will be stored and for how long, what other agencies scores would be shared with, what roles commercial firms play, and what safeguards and remedial procedures will be included.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from the InternetNews.com (03/14/03); Mark, Roy . x.