Without their knowledge, millions of travelers crossing US borders in the past four years have been assigned scores generated by US government computers rating the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals.
The travelers -- Americans and foreign citizens alike -- are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.
The government calls the system critical to national security following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Some privacy advocates call it one of the most intrusive and risky schemes yet mounted in the name of anti-terrorism efforts.
Virtually every person entering and leaving the US by air, sea or land is scored by the Homeland Security Department's Automated Targeting System (ATS).
The scores are based on ATS' analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.
The use of the program on travelers was quietly disclosed earlier this month when the department put a notice detailing ATS in the Federal Register, a fine-print compendium of federal rules. The few civil liberties lawyers who had heard of ATS and even some law enforcement officers said they had thought it was only used to screen cargo.
The Homeland Security Department called the program "one of the most advanced targeting systems in the world" and said the nation's ability to spot criminals and other security threats "would be critically impaired without access to this data."
But to David Sobel, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group devoted to civil liberties in cyberspace: "It's probably the most invasive system the government has yet deployed in terms of the number of people affected."
Government officials could not say whether ATS has apprehended any terrorists. Based on all the information available to them, federal agents turn back about 45 foreign criminals a day at US borders, according to Bill Anthony, Homeland Security's customs and border protection spokesman. He could not say how many were spotted by ATS.
"Homeland Security ought to focus on the simple things it can do and stop trying to build these overly complex jury-rigged systems," Barry Steinhardt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, said citing problems the agency has had developing a computerized screening system for domestic air travelers.
That data-mining project -- now known as Secure Flight -- caused a furor two years ago in Congress. Lawmakers have barred its implementation until it can pass 10 tests for accuracy and privacy protection.
In comments to the government about ATS, Sobel said: "Some individuals will be denied the right to travel and many the right to travel free of unwarranted interference."
The government notice says some or all of the ATS data about an individual may be shared with state, local and foreign governments for use in hiring decisions and in granting licenses, security clearances, contracts or other benefits. In some cases, the data may be shared with Congress, courts and even private contractors.
"Everybody else can see it, but you can't," Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration lawyer who teaches at Cornell Law school, said in an interview.
In a privacy impact assessment posted on its Web site this week, Homeland Security said ATS is aimed at discovering high-risk individuals who "may not have been previously associated with a law enforcement action or otherwise be noted as a person of concern to law enforcement."
ATS was first used to rate the risk posed by travelers in the late 1990s, using personal information about them voluntarily supplied by air and cruise lines.
A later law vastly expanded the program. It required airline and cruise companies to begin in 2002 sending the government electronic data in advance on all passengers and crew bound into or out of the country.
In addition, at land border crossings, agents enter license plates and the names of vehicle drivers and passengers, and the Amtrak national passenger rail service voluntarily supplies passenger data.
In the Federal Register, the department exempted ATS from many provisions of the Privacy Act designed to protect people from secret, possibly inaccurate government dossiers. As a result, it said travelers cannot learn whether the system has assessed them. Nor can they see the records "for the purpose of contesting the content."
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