"Privacy takes a back seat to security"

Sunday, May 26, 2002

Privacy takes a back seat to security
The government is looking at new surveillance technologies as America
scrambles to protect itself against terrorists.
By ROBERT S. BOYD
Knight Ridder News


WASHINGTON - Technology companies are enlisting in the war on terrorism,
seeking to profit by making Americans more secure.

But some of the new technologies, including lie detectors that claim to read
brain waves and electronic scanners that see through clothing, raise
concerns about possible invasions of privacy.

"In the wake of Sept. 11, a wide array of corporations, with the active
encouragement of the U.S. government, are developing new and extremely
intrusive systems to capture personal data, biometric data and video
information," said Wayne Madsen, a privacy researcher at the Electronic
Privacy Information Center in Washington.

Low-tech devices, such as a network of video surveillance cameras monitoring
public areas in the nation's capital, also are proliferating.

With some exaggeration, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, whose
department is responsible for airport safety, told the Senate Appropriations
Committee earlier this month:

"We've got every salesman - 20,000 of them, I think - approaching us about
how they've got some machine that will take care of everything we do,
including not only detecting explosives but athlete's foot as well."

All seek to share in the billions of dollars budgeted for homeland security.

Reflecting former President Dwight D. Eisenhower's parting warning about a
"military-industrial complex" unduly influencing government policy, Peter
Swire, a law professor at George Washington University in Washington, said
Americans were witnessing the growth of "a new security-industrial complex."

"Industry is looking at homeland security as a lifeline for (getting out of
the) recession," Swire said. "There are financial incentives for industry as
the budget for security agencies grows."

To some, America's scientific and technical sophistication is a unique
resource in the shadowy war against hijackers, bombers, biological, chemical
or nuclear terrorists.

"If we had advanced (technology) tools in place prior to Sept. 11, it is
almost certain that some of the terrorists would have been detained and
possibly some of the plots would have been foiled," said a report from the
Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington research center associated with
the Clinton-Gore administration.

These are among the surveillance technologies that are winning new
government interest:

 Automatic face-recognition systems have been installed in about a dozen
airports, and more are coming. A camera takes images of arriving passengers
and compares them with a computer database of faces of known or suspected
terrorists. If there is a match, an alarm sounds.

"This is a new type of technology that can help against terrorism and
crime," said Joseph Atick, chief executive of Visionics Corp. of Jersey
City, N.J., one of several manufacturers of such devices.

 Twin digital cameras, mounted on eyeglasses frames, are undergoing Army
trials at guard posts on military bases. Developed by MicroOptical
Engineering Corp. of Westwood, Mass., the cameras match an approaching face
against a database of "friends" or "foes."

 The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing a
"Human Identification at a Distance" system that recognizes a person's
gestures and style of walking as well as his or her face, eyes and
fingerprints.

 An electronic body scanner that can see through clothing raises obvious
privacy concerns. The telephone booth-size scanner, made by Rapiscan
Security Products of Hawthorne, Calif., uses X-rays to detect knives, guns,
bombs or other objects concealed under clothing.

Unfortunately, it also shows parts of the body in considerable detail. The
Federal Aviation Administration is testing the system at the Orlando (Fla.)
International Airport.

"We understand the importance of the right to privacy," said Rapiscan Vice
President Peter Williamson, "but we consider the right to feel safe and
secure within our borders to be equally important."

 Dozens of vendors are offering "biometric" cards with embedded computer
chips that contain personal identification data. State motor vehicle
departments are considering adopting such tamper-proof cards for driver's
licenses that could not be stolen or forged to create a false identity. Some
privacy experts worry that such cards could form the basis for a national ID
system, which they deplore.

 Other cards, intended for foreign students, immigrants and people who have
U.S. visas, will soon have to contain machine-readable "biometric"
identification such as fingerprints or retinal scans.

The war on terrorism involves not only clever machines but also proposals
for new government procedures to thwart terrorists. For example:

 The USA Patriot Act that President Bush signed in October gives the
Transportation Department authority to create a database of "trusted
travelers" who could use electronic identification cards to avoid long
security lines at airports.

John Magaw, head of the Transportation Security Administration, is
skeptical. "I would not be willing to allow the baggage to go unchecked or
have your hand-carry unchecked," he said.

 The Transportation Department is considering a plan to significantly beef
up its Computer Assisted Passenger Screening program. Since 1998, CAPS has
maintained a database of the travel records of millions of airline
passengers.

Under the new proposal, this system would be extended to cover all travelers
and would link airline reservation systems to other government and private
databases. The result would be a huge central file containing every flier's
current and past travel records, addresses, phone numbers, credit cards,
driver's licenses, cars owned and many other details.

John Mutch, chief executive of HNC Software of San Diego, said his company
was working with the airlines to develop such a system. According to Mutch,
CAPS computers would analyze the collected data and pick out unusual
patterns, such as five men between ages 20 and 40 who once lived in the same
apartment house and who all bought one-way tickets on a certain flight using
the same brand of credit card.

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