Handicaps in CAPPS.

TRANSPORTATION safety measures; COUNTERTERRORISM; COMMERCIAL aeronautics; NATIONAL security; TRANSPORTATION policy; CIVIL rights

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) believes it can answer the question of whether a passenger will blow up an airplane via a proposed second-generation system known as Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening, or CAPPS II. The original system, which began in 1998, requires U.S. based airlines to pass reservation data through a secret, government-supplied algorithm intended to identify fliers who pose a risk to safety. After September 11, 2001, officials extended CAPPS to include all passengers and required airlines to refuse to board anyone with a matching or similar name to those on the government's "no-fly" list without permission from law-enforcement officials. The proposed CAPPS II will be an attempt to build a "threat-assessment tool" that would be the world's first fully automated system to check passenger backgrounds. Altering current practices to suit CAPPS II will be costly. Still, such a system could possibly succeed. Retired FBI profiler Bill Tafoya favors a risk-based assessment system because limited understanding of other cultures and the fact that data mining can only be as successful as the mind-set that produces the search criteria allows it to be. The extensive data on passengers that CAPPS II would collect has aroused the ire of privacy groups and civil liberties organizations. Even a tiny percentage of false positives will create the perception that innocent fliers are being harassed. And only one false negative could result in a catastrophe.