What is 'Secure Flight'?
'Secure Flight' is a revised version of the discredited CAPPS II passenger profiling system.
If 'Secure Flight' makes it through testing, the following will happen every time you exercise your right to travel:
What will the airlines do?
Collect your full name, date of birth, address and home phone number;
Put information related to your travel plans (including your credit card number, frequent flier number and itinerary) into a file and send it to the government.
The Feds will then:
Compare your name against the widely discredited Watch List;
Possibly have private data providers decide if you're really who you say you are;
Have you arrested at the airport if they think you're potentially linked to terrorism.
Can I appeal a Homeland Security decision?
Sure. Write a letter to a Homeland Security P.O. Box while you're being detained at the airport and they'll get back to you real soon.
How do I know the government's information is correct?
You don't. The TSA does not require any of the databases they use to be accurate, just as the Justice Department has exempted their warrant database from being accurate.
Are private databases accurate?
No. One of the largest private companies running information checks for the federal government, ChoicePoint, played a curious role in the 2000 Florida elections.
Will this system make flying safer?
No, and here's why.
How will the airlines give my personal data to Homeland Security?
The airlines don't keep your reservation data. They outsource its storage to companies called Computerized Reservation Systems (CRS). Airlines, hotels, car rental agencies and others use CRSes to keep their records. Galileo is one CRS. The other CRSes are Sabre, WorldSpan and Amadeus. Think of a CRS as the travel equivalent of a credit bureau.
The program is nothing less than a Soviet-style system of internal border controls. An incredible invasion of privacy, the system is un-American and un-Constitutional: not that a pesky thing like the Bill of Rights has stopped the extremists down at Homeland Security. It is our duty as citizens to do the job that the Department of Homeland Security has miserably failed at doing: to protect the US Constitution and stop 'Secure Flight' from taking off.