p2pnet.net News:- An Automated Targeting System (ATS) will create and assign “risk assessments” on tens of millions of US citizens as they enter and leave the country, says the EFF.

“In comments sent to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the agency to delay the program’s rollout until it makes more details available to the public and addresses critical privacy and due process concerns,” it states.

People will have no way to access information about their scores or to correct any false information about them, says the EFF, but, “once the assessment is made, the government will retain the information for 40 years – as well as make it available to untold numbers of federal, state, local, and foreign agencies in addition to contractors, grantees, consultants, and others.”

“The government is preparing to give millions of law-abiding citizens ‘risk assessment’ scores that will follow them throughout their lives,” says senior EFF staff lawyer David Sobel.

Here’s the official description:

The Treasury Enforcement Communications System is established as an overarching law enforcement information collection, targeting, and sharing environment. This environment is comprised of several modules designed to collect, maintain, and screen data, conduct targeting, and share information. Among these modules, the Automated Targeting System performs screening of both inbound and outbound cargo, travelers, and conveyances.

As part of this screening function, the Automated Targeting System compares information obtained from the public with a set series of queries designed to permit targeting of conveyances, goods, cargo, or persons to facilitate DHS’s border enforcement mission.

The risk assessment and links to information upon which the assessment is based, which are stored in the Automated Targeting System, are created from existing information in a number of sources, including, but not limited to: the trade community through the Automated Commercial System or its successor; the Automated Commercial Environment system; the traveling public through information submitted by their carrier to the Advance Passenger Information System; persons crossing the United States land border by automobile or on foot; the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, or its successor; or law enforcement information maintained in other parts of the Treasury Enforcement Communications System that pertain to persons, goods, or conveyances.

As part of the information it accesses for screening, Passenger Name Record (PNR) information, which is currently collected pursuant to an existing CBP regulation (19 CFR 122.49d) from both inbound and outbound travelers through the carrier upon which travel occurs, is stored in the Automated Targeting System. PNR is comprised of data which carriers collect as a matter of their usual business practice in negotiating and arranging the travel transaction.

Also See:
EFF – American Travelers to Get Secret ‘Risk Assessment’ Scores, November 30, 2006

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 9:29 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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