Screwing your data while making you wait


A couple of news articles give glimpses of the future RealID program. And it isn't pretty.
Thanks to Wendy McElroy's blog, I saw this DenverChannel.com article.

You could be on a secret government database or watch list for simply taking a picture on an airplane. Some federal air marshals say they're reporting your actions to meet a quota, even though some top officials deny it.

The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they're required to submit at least one report a month. If they don't, there's no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments.

"Innocent passengers are being entered into an international intelligence database as suspicious persons, acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft ... and they did nothing wrong," said one federal air marshal.

These unknowing passengers who are doing nothing wrong are landing in a secret government document called a Surveillance Detection Report, or SDR. Air marshals told 7NEWS that managers in Las Vegas created and continue to maintain this potentially dangerous quota system.

"Do these reports have real life impacts on the people who are identified as potential terrorists?" 7NEWS Investigator Tony Kovaleski asked.

"Absolutely," a federal air marshal replied.

7NEWS obtained an internal Homeland Security document defining an SDR as a report designed to identify terrorist surveillance activity.

Got that? Because it gets worse.

Michael at the RealID Rebellion blog linked to some stories showing how bad just getting an ID can be. This one is from The Decatur Daily News.

Since people begin lining up on the sidewalk at 6:30 a.m., courthouse security screeners herd the crowd in at 7:30.

June Berry, a security screener on the first floor, said people bring lawn chairs, books and coffee.

"It's aggravating," she said. "People are all over the place because there's just no room for everyone."

Movement back and forth requires repeated scanning. The wait can be a day, and some people are told to try again the next day.

The line is not likely to shorten soon. Decatur is the only driver license facility north of Birmingham that screens applicants for driver license and identification cards who are not U.S. citizens. Other sites are in Tuscaloosa, Dothan, Mobile and Montgomery.

The problem is compounded because Alabama is one of only a handful of states that requires U.S. citizens to do additional identity verification for Real I.D., a national information linking system that doesn't take effect until 2008. This creates problems for people whose names on birth certificates differ from names on previous driver licenses. Marriage and divorce are other examples that can create a problem. In every instance, paperwork must be provided and verified.

Expect to spend days, maybe weeks in line for every single change, every error, every bank report on your "suspicious" activity, every time an air marshall needs to make their quota and picked your name our of a hat.

And just because you fixed your record at one place, don't expect it to stay fixed. If the data raises flags at a police agency, the flag will stay raised even if the original information is corrected. And once the flag is raised, that will increase how much the computers monitor your activity.

Expect the records of those with similar names and identifying numbers to spill over into yours.

And once the information is in "the system," expect it to be used against you to serve the government's purpose. That Orange Julius you bought at the mall the other day? That may be enough to trigger an investigation.

You see, the kid who sold it to you had just ordered a copy of The Anarchists Cookbook from an online bookstore. The kid's aunt is a member of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. And the guy behind you just ordered growlights for his hothouse orchids. Obviously you are connected to all these people, and you have radical, subversive tendencies.

Good luck in finding out about the investigation before your arrest. It's illegal for anyone to tell you about it.

So I'll sum it up again.

The government can't be trusted to keep your data secure.

The government wants to take your data without your permission.

The government will alter your data based on bureaucratic needs and quotas.

Once it hits the fan, it will start a cascade that you might be able to dig yourself out of in a decade or so. Even then, wrong information will stick to your records like a weekly skunk attack.

The government's desire and power to do this is based on one premise.

You are guilty until proven innocent. Even then you are lying.

Welcome to the future.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Thu - July 27, 2006 at 05:39 AM  Tag


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