Submitted Comments
310 From Sherman L, Los Angeles, Ca., 23 October 2004, 01:21:39 PM PST
The Department of Homeland Security is a Joke. To begin with there are much more important areas tha should be addressed for our nations saftey.
Our nations ports, Trains and trucking lines should be their major concern. Instead they have placed inferior equiptment in our airports with the hope that the public will have a sense of security. Well, we don't feel safe nor do we trust the Department of Homeland Security.
309 From John S, Palo Alto, CA, 23 October 2004, 01:19:47 PM PST
I am writing to protest the Secure Flight program.
In the America where I grew up, such an all-encompassing information dragnet would have been denounced as the kind of measure only totaliarian Communists would contemplate. Have we now decided to become our own worst enemy?
Those of us who pay taxes in this country are providing enormous subsidies to air travel. Those subsidies have helped make it the only practical way to travel to many parts of the country. So we should all have access to the transportation network we have paid for, without having to surrender to unwarranted searches and arbitrary invasion of our privacy.
Adding insult to injury, there's no reason to think such a massive compromise of our personal privacy would even be effective.
Secure Flight should be rejected decisively -- under that name or any other.
308 From Sherman L, Los Angeles, Ca, 23 October 2004, 01:10:06 PM PST
If a test of this type is allowed, we as freeAmericans cease to be free.
Our nation will become a Police State which permits no freedom of any kind
for it's citizens.
307 From Jeff F, Columbus, OH, 23 October 2004, 01:03:43 PM PST
How will my privacy be protected? More importantly, how will I be able to correct bad information that you have?
You should spend our tax dollars on better things like better baggage screening and more training for TSA agents.
303 From David W, Signal Mountain, TN, 23 October 2004, 09:34:07 AM PST
I have major concerns that the 'Secure Flight' is not very secure and will have the side effect of invaiding a person's privacy without providing any recourse for having information removed or, if incorrect, challenged and corrected.
What checks are in place to prevent information from being accessed by unauthorized individuals or companies? How can individuals verify the information is correct? What checks prevent someone from using a court order, a paid informant, or intimidation to obtain information from the database. How will the system be secured to avoid data useage and access that is prohibited by policy from being availble in the future because policy changed. What provisions exist to have a person's data removed from the system?
"Trust me" is not an acceptable answer. The TSA has a horrible record on privacy. During the past two years, the TSA secretly obtained millions of travel records from several airlines and airline-reservation systems and passed these records on to private contractors without adequate safeguards.
The accuracy the terrorist watch lists is questionable at best. Why has Senator Kennedy been identified as a 'risk' on severals flights. While I may not be politically aligned with the senator, I would not consider him a terrorist.
The screening system seems looks to be the first step in a national ID system. If your not in the system, you cannot fly. What is next, banning train and bus travel? After that will people not in the system be banned from large public gatherings like sporting events like the World Series? Where will it stop?
Until adequate safeguards are in place and are being used, 'Secure Flight' is not a solution but a problem.
302 From Zachary L, Rochester, NY, 23 October 2004, 08:52:34 AM PST
Secure Flight provides a huge invasion of our privacy without giving us any kind of real security. The money to be spent on this would be far more effective if spent on real security. Stop treating your passengers like criminals and start treating them like customers.
301 From M E, 23 October 2004, 07:55:19 AM PST
Let's TRY to be sane and realistic these days... what good does this Secure Flight program do when other more serious issues like cargo scanning - for instance - go unaddressed? People who travel by air are mostly quite happy to go through security checks for their actual person/body and 'carry-ons'- if not, THEN there is certainly cause for concern - but delving into their personal files/history can easily lead to a great deal of error/abuse.
300 From Kathy L, Dallas, TX, 23 October 2004, 05:17:05 AM PST
My credit history and medical history has nothing to do with flying on a commercial aircraft. Perhaps the "true" terrorists are the airlines and their greed. If they had not subcontracted out their security to convicted felons, rapists, murderers, child molestors, illegal aliens, we would not have had 9/11. Also, half of the blame should be on the Federal Government who can't protect us let alone themselves. Unless you inspect the cargo hold why should we "disrobe" for TSA.
299 From Michael P, Milwaukie, Oregon, 23 October 2004, 05:04:38 AM PST
Secure Flight is a huge waste of money because it doesn't enhance security. The watch lists are a mess, and terrorists will easily recon and defeat the system. TSA would be vastly more effective by implementing cargo screening. Secure Flight is mostly security theater; it's not effective protection or an effective deterrent. There will be too many "false positives" and there is no way to redress the error. It's un-American to impose this kind of internal border control. The terrorists have won when we trade liberty for security -- especially false security, which is what Secure Flight is all about.
298 From anonymous, 23 October 2004, 04:26:33 AM PST
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ---Abraham Lincoln
Are we now such cowards that we will give up the very freedom our country has stood for and the values that we so proudly proclaim should be a beacon to the world? If so, then the terrorists have already won.
Our freedom is being taken from us by CHICKENHAWKS who were all too willing to send others off to war while they stayed home and talked tough. These faith based bumbling bullies carry bibles wherever they go and have prayer meetings instead of policy meetings.
We need STRONG yet SENSIBLE leaders promoting policies that adhere to traditional values. I'm not talking about banning gay marriage or flag burning. I'm talking about THE CONSTITUTION AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." -- FOURTH AMMENDMENT
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli, 1796
"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." Harry S. Truman
And then there's George W. Bush who on 12/19/2000 candidly said:
"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier so long as I'm the dictator."