I fully appreciate the need to monitor for nefarious characters to weed them off of flights. That part is a no brainer. But, according to an article today on CNN the DHS has been assigning scores to travellers without their knowledge via computer. These scores take into account various aspects such as destinations, nationality, seating preference and…meals?

The government gets advance passenger and crew lists for all flights and ships entering and leaving and all those names are entered into the system for an ATS analysis, said Jayson P. Ahern, an assistant commissioner of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection agency.

He also said the names of vehicle drivers and passengers are entered when they cross the border and Amtrak is voluntarily supplying passenger data for trains to and from Canada.

These records cannot be challenged by the people affected and are apparently earmarked to remain on file for 40 years. US tax dollars hard at work.

Privacy advocates have gone all flippity over this one.

“It’s probably the most invasive system the government has yet deployed in terms of the number of people affected,” said David Sobel, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group devoted to electronic data issues.

He continued, “Some individuals will be denied the right to travel and many the right to travel free of unwarranted interference as a result of the maintenance of such material.”

I’d better be sure not to sit in an aisle seat or order the vegetarian meal lest I end up in Gitmo.

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Tags: DHS, Airline Security, Traveler Privacy, EFF