The American Civil Liberties Union today welcomed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's apparent decision to drop plans for a second version of its Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, known as CAPPS II. DHS officials did not immediately respond to requests from
Business Travel News for confirmation of a
USA Today article, published today, which quoted Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge as saying the program is dead because of concerns over airline mishandling of passenger data privacy. Those and other concerns made it apparent earlier this year that CAPPS II was in trouble
(BTN, March 29, 2004).
"Knowing that this program is dead, I do not feel one bit more vulnerable to terrorist attack," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty project, "but I feel a lot less afraid of getting trapped in a tangled security bureaucracy, with no assurance of getting out."