Criticism of an electronic airline passenger-screening network took on a new edge yesterday as the Senate Commerce Committee endorsed a plan to require the Transportation Security Administration to disclose how the system will work, including its impact on personal privacy.
Government officials consider the surveillance system, known as CAPPS II, to be a crucial part of plans to secure the aviation system from terrorist threats. But a growing number of critics believe the system will be overly intrusive and used by other law enforcement agencies.
"This is really the beginning of a debate of how our country can fight [terrorism] ferociously, without gutting civil liberties," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said after the committee accepted his amendment yesterday. It also would require the TSA to report how it will mitigate errors and enable appeals from passengers who believe they were incorrectly identified as potential threats.
The CAPPS II system will rely heavily on commercial data warehouses containing names, telephone numbers, former addresses, financial details and other information about nearly every adult American, according to documents and officials.
Under current plans, it will send a passenger's identifying information to a commercial information service and have the service construct a risk score, based on computer models provided by the TSA. Those scores will help determine whether a passenger can board a flight. Officials have said they're most interested in knowing whether someone is "rooted in the community."
Eventually, the TSA, which says it is building privacy protections into the system, intends to extend its use to screen truckers, railroad conductors, subway workers and others whose transportation jobs involve the public trust.
Civil liberties activists praised Wyden's amendment, but said it may not go far enough. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, questioned whether the system should operate at all.
James M. Loy, undersecretary of transportation for security, has said the system will not draw in personal information to CAPPS computers, apart from names and a few other details gathered from reservations. He also has said his agency will not create a central file of passenger information.
In a speech yesterday, Loy said the TSA also would create an independent oversight board for the screening system. "TSA is committed to the very American proposition that our rights and our security are complementary, not competitive or contradictory," Loy said.
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