Tuesday, September 09, 2003

Politicians get Red Color Codes from New Passenger Screening Program

Brian Angliss, Daedalnexus Staff Writer

The Transportation Safety Administration today announced that their prototype second-generation passenger pre-screening system had issued Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge a red color code rather than the green code he was expected to have been issued, preventing Director Ridge from flying and causing the Director some embarrassment.

President Bush’s Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, said “We’re unsure at this time how such an upstanding citizen as Director Ridge could have been issued a red ‘do-not-fly’ code. We’re looking into it.”

The second generation Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System, CAPPS-II, is being tested by the TSA by undisclosed airlines at undisclosed airports. Previous attempts to test the system publically with the help of Delta Airlines resulted in massive public outcry by a broad coalition of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. This coalition successfully put CAPPS-II on the defensive until recently, when the TSA announced that testing would begin again.

The cause of Director Ridge’s red code was not immediately apparent, but an official involved with CAPPS-II, who spoke with the Daedalnexus on the condition of anonymity, said “CAPPS-II is designed to accept all manner of data on the prior affiliations and activities of all passengers and to assign a potential threat rating to that data.” Apparently, CAPPS-II had somehow acquired some information regarding Director Ridge’s actions during his tenure as Governor of Pennsylvania and had concluded that his prior activities and associations qualified him as a high risk traveller.

According to the official, “CAPPS had data that, as Governor, Director Ridge had ordered the pre-emptive arrest of political protestors outside the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in what was later termed by the courts ‘prior restraint of First Ammendment rights to free speech.’ In addition, CAPPS categorized Director Ridge’s apparent refusal to order the Bureau of Customs and Immigration to crack down on anti-illegal alien vigilante groups along the Mexican border and his lack of support for port security” as directly supportive of domestic and international terrorist organizations.

The Daedalnexus has also received information that, following the embarrassing incident with Director Ridge, the CAPPS-II system was checked for its responses to a number of other Administration figures. These included National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vice President Dick Cheney, and President Bush. Except for Secretary Powell, all were given red, do-not-travel codes that would have prevented them from flying and could have resulted in their arrest had they been actual travelers.

The CAPPS-II official said that “Rice was disqualified for her failure to properly screen the intelligence information that led to the Iraq invasion and the urrent resurgence of Al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorists in that country. Ashcroft was disqualified based on CAPPS’ assessment that he was responsible for stripping away Constitutional freedoms from millions of people and causing the entire populace to live in fear of the Justice Department and the FBI. Rumsfeld’s disqualification was due to several factors, the most important of which was his reluctance to send sufficient soldiers to police Iraq that was responsible for the continuing deaths of American soldiers. Cheney was disqualified for his prior affiliation with Halliburton. Halliburton’s history of supporting Middle Eastern dictatorships with poor human rights records and supporting corrupt politicians in Niger disqualifies most past and present Halliburton executives.”

According to the official, “the President was disqualified for allowing Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to resurge in Afghanistan and for turning Iraq into a terrorist breeding swamp in the process of invading and occupying Iraq.”

Only Secretary Powell would have been allowed to travel, but even he was given a yellow, additional-scrutiny code by CAPPS-II. According to the TSA official, he would have been issued a green code if it were not for his present association with the other members of the Administration.

When asked about the status of the CAPPS-II program given these revelations, Scott McClellan said “The Administration are not terrorists, nor are they supporters of terrorism. There are obviously some bugs in CAPPS-II to work out. This is why the TSA is only testing the program currently.”

The anonymous TSA official said in response, “I agree that the President and his Cabinet aren’t terrorists, but if a dumb program like CAPPS-II can come to that conclusion, is it any wonder that some thinking people worldwide have too?”