The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced that it will test a new passenger-prescreening program for airline travel, Secure Flight. This program is a successor to the scrapped CAPPS-II program,* which was widely criticized for its ineffectiveness and infringment on our Constitutional liberties. For the test, the TSA will require all the airlines to hand over all their passenger data from June of ’04. To stop this massive infringement on our privacy (I flew in June — did you?), some intrepid citizens have put together a website that makes it easy to send comments to the TSA: Unsecure Flight. Here’s my letter to Tom Ridge et al asking them to scrap this program. It only took me a few minutes — please consider sending your own letter of protest.

>Hello,

>As a citizen, I urge you to cancel the planned test of the Secure Flight program. Not only would Secure Flight be an intrusion on our Constitutional rights, it would not make the USA safer, as many security experts will tell you. For instance, Bruce Schneier, a security expert, author and founder of Counterpane Internet Security Inc, has argued persuasively that profiling databases are unreliable, ineffective, and very expensive, spending money that could be better spent on more effective security measures, such as increased baggage screening and training for TSA employees. I urge you to read Mr. Schneier’s essay “IDs and the Illusion of Security”. Thank you for your consideration.

>Sincerely,
>Daniel Winckler

* computer-assisted passenger prescreening system