WashingtonWire - 2003-09-22

CAPPS II Comment Period Ends Sept. 30

The public has until Sept. 30 to file comments with the Transportation Security Administration on CAPPS II, the second-generation Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System that will use passenger information to make flying more secure. CAPPS II, proposed in January, was revamped in July after much criticism about travelers' privacy. The new proposal states that information on passengers will be retained by the government only for a few hours after travel is complete, rather than for 50 years as initially proposed. Additionally, commercial data providers that assist the government in confirming a passenger's identity will not be allowed to retain the information, and CAPPS II will not use bank or credit data or medical records as previously was suggested. CAPPS II will take the information that people provide when making reservations and compare it with commercial databases to confirm each passenger's identity, match the data against watch lists and other national security data to determine if a passenger has any links to terrorist or militant groups, as well as flag violent criminals with outstanding federal or state arrest warrants for law enforcement action. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will evaluate public comments, and will publish a third notice before CAPPS II becomes operational sometime early next year



U.S. Extends Deadline For Machine-Readable Passports

The United States has extended by one year the Oct. 1 deadline requiring all citizens of the 27 countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program who wish to enter the United States without a visa to have machine-readable passports, the U.S. State Department said this month. The State Department, recognizing that many passports are still not machine-readable, this month told 26 of the governments that they can apply for the one-year extension. Those countries are mostly democracies whose citizens are thought unlikely to seek work in the United States illegally, including most of western Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Belgium, which is under special rules, cannot apply for the extension.