Apparently the TSA’s response to humiliating gropedowns and civil liberties violations of every stripe is to streamline their process at the airport by conducting a full background check prior to travel. This is the Orwellian thought process in full view: violate your Constitutional rights to free you up for movement to a place of your choosing.
Citing a desire to give 25% of travelers a “lighter screening” the TSA will be accessing public databases as well as government intelligence databases prior to you entering an airport. This will include prior travel history, car registration, and even employment information according to a report by The New York Times.
Gaps in oversight are already being raised:
It is unclear precisely what information the agency is relying upon to make these risk assessments, given the extensive range of records it can access, including tax identification number, past travel itineraries, property records, physical characteristics, and law enforcement or intelligence information.
The measures go beyond the background check the government has conducted for years, called Secure Flight, in which a passenger’s name, gender and date of birth are compared with terrorist watch lists. Now, the search includes using a traveler’s passport number, which is already used to screen people at the border, and other identifiers to access a system of databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security.
Additionally it is noted that once identified as a potential risk, which in the past has included activists and political opposition, you can expect your screening to be even more invasive. This essentially merges the TSA with the NSA, fully out in the open, to form a pre-crime surveillance matrix which directly impacts one’s right to travel. And let’s not forget how many people have inadvertently wound up on the No-Fly list, with no recourse to find out how they got on the list, or how to get off. An unnamed agency official stated that all passengers are to undergo this pre-screening intelligence risk analysis.
This latest admission by the TSA should leave no doubt that all personal information that appears in any database has already been stored, cataloged, and is fully intended to be used in the most invasive manner possible, all in the name of national security. You are 100% guilty until proven innocent in the eyes of the surveillance state. It seems like the only difference between totalitarian regimes of the past and this one is that they no longer ask for your papers; they already have all of the information they need.
H/T – The Verge
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