If you've traveled abroad recently, you've been investigated. You've
been assigned a score indicating what kind of terrorist threat you
pose. That score is used by the government to determine the treatment
you receive when you return to the U.S. and for other purposes as well.
Curious about your score? You can't see it. Interested in what
information was used? You can't know that. Want to clear your name if
you've been wrongly categorized? You can't challenge it. Want to know
what kind of rules the computer is using to judge you? That's secret,
too. So is when and how the score will be used.
U.S. customs agencies have been quietly operating this system for several years. Called Automated Targeting System,
it assigns a "risk assessment" score to people entering or leaving the
country, or engaging in import or export activity. This score, and the
information used to derive it, can be shared with federal, state, local
and even foreign governments. It can be used if you apply for a
government job, grant, license, contract or other benefit. It can be
shared with nongovernmental organizations and individuals in the course
of an investigation. In some circumstances private contractors can get
it, even those outside the country. And it will be saved for 40 years.
Little is known about this program. Its bare outlines were disclosed in the Federal Register
in October. We do know that the score is partially based on details of
your flight record--where you're from, how you bought your ticket,
where you're sitting, any special meal requests--or on motor vehicle
records, as well as on information from crime, watch-list and other
databases.
Civil liberties groups have called the program Kafkaesque. But I have an even bigger problem with it. It's a waste of money.
The idea of feeding a limited set
of characteristics into a computer, which then somehow divines a
person's terrorist leanings, is farcical. Uncovering terrorist plots
requires intelligence and investigation, not large-scale processing of
everyone.
Additionally, any system like this will generate so many false
alarms as to be completely unusable. In 2005 Customs & Border
Protection processed 431 million people. Assuming an unrealistic model
that identifies terrorists (and innocents) with 99.9% accuracy, that's
still 431,000 false alarms annually.
The number of false alarms will be much higher than that. The no-fly list is filled with inaccuracies; we've all read about innocent people named David Nelson who can't fly without hours-long harassment. Airline data, too, are riddled with errors.
5:44:39 PM  PermaLink /
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