A new U.S. invasion of travelers' privacy

December 5, 2006 by Maya Harris, San Francisco Chronicle

Editor -- Never before in American history has our government created a program for generating "terrorist" ratings on tens of millions of travelers, including American citizens, maintaining the data for 40 years, and sharing that information with local, state and foreign governments. ("U.S. secretly screening travelers," Dec. 1).

All of this was done without affected individuals having an opportunity to see, correct or challenge the government's terrorist rating. Originally created to track cargo, not people, this new Automated Tracking System is an unprecedented assault on Americans' privacy. Innocent people will undoubtedly get caught up in the program and will have little recourse under it. The government is claiming sweeping exemptions from the Privacy Act of 1974 -- a law that was passed specifically to prevent the government from keeping secret files or databases on innocent people not suspected of a crime.

The ACLU urges the Department of Homeland Security to abandon this program, or at the very least, extend the time period in which public comments can be submitted. DHS released the program's Privacy Impact Assessment merely one week before the program is due to be implemented. Americans have a right to know and be heard about a massive government-tracking program that can potentially assign citizens a terrorist-threat rating for the rest of their lives.

MAYA HARRIS, Executive Director
ACLU of Northern California
San Francisco