"CAPPS II: Name game is latest struggle for troubled aviation security program"

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Name game is latest struggle for troubled aviation security program 
BY LESLIE MILLER
The Associated Press


More than two years and millions of dollars ago, it seemed like a good
idea: develop a computerized system that checks airline passengers'
backgrounds to make sure they're not terrorists. 

But so many people objected to one part of the plan or another that the
government is scrapping major portions of the project, the
Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System, commonly known as
CAPPS II. 

The makeover will include a new name, though that, too, is turning out
to be a dilemma for the Homeland Security Department. 

The working title, "Secure Passage," was abandoned because it had the
same initials as another aviation security program. In a city that loves
its acronyms, it's best not to double up. 

No one thinks a name change alone will be enough to resurrect CAPPS II. 

Dennis McBride, director of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, a
research institute that focuses on science and technology, was briefed
by Homeland Security officials on CAPPS II's progress last week. 

"Getting there from here won't be easy," McBride concluded. 

The Homeland Security officials working on the project are likely to get
rid of one element that CAPPS II's critics dislike: making sure people
are who they say they are by running their personal information against
commercial and government databases. 

Any new system would probably have a different process for verifying
identity, according to Homeland Security officials. 

Another problem is how to give airline passengers the ability to correct
mistakes if they're wrongly identified as terrorists or suspects. 

Homeland Security spokesman Dennis Murphy said the department is working
on that. 

"That's something we clearly intend to test, to have a process for
people to get redress if they feel that they're being screened
unnecessarily or too frequently," Murphy said. 

But what's really needed, say CAPPS II's numerous critics, is for the
project's developers to drop their passion for secrecy. 

Business Travel Coalition chairman Kevin Mitchell said CAPPS II wouldn't
have become a political debacle if Homeland Security officials had been
open about how the system was supposed to work. The coalition is an
advocacy group that tries to lower the cost of business travel. 

"It was badly handled," Mitchell said. "It scared everybody. The lack of
transparency and inclusiveness is what really doomed it." 

Mitchell said privacy advocates and airline passenger groups might not
have objected so strenuously to CAPPS II if they'd been included in the
project's development. 

"People would have been able to contribute solutions and buy into the
process," Mitchell said. 

But privacy advocate David Sobel thinks CAPPS II may be so fundamentally
flawed that no amount of reshaping or repackaging can save it. 

Sobel characterizes CAPPS II as a secret system of surveillance on tens
of millions of people who fly on commercial airlines. 

"It's a fundamental dilemma that arises when the government attempts to
use intelligence information against average citizens," said Sobel,
general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a
Washington-based research group. 

But Paul Rosenzweig, a researcher with the Heritage Foundation think
tank, predicts Homeland Security officials will come up with a successor
to CAPPS II. 

"They're strongly committed, as I think they should be, to the idea that
we need to know something about people who travel on planes," said
Rosenzweig, who attended the meeting last week with Homeland Security
officials. 

On the Net: 

Transportation Security Administration: www.tsa.gov 

Homeland Security Department: www.dhs.gov


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