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 US 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.
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.
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.
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land. “We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute,” Sture said on Monday. “I’m trying to think what’s in its mind.” The bird then attacked Sture five more times on Thursday last week, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier’s face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway
RSS