CAPPS II report from US General Accounting Office

[PPRuNe Dispatcher]

An interesting read :

Report to Congressional Committees : Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System Faces Significant Implementation
Challenges

GAO report on the CAPPS-2 airline (http://www.epic.org/privacy/airtravel/gao-capps-rpt.pdf)

...Mik

[seacue]

A little background. The GAO (General Accounting Office) is the investigative arm of the US Congress. Sometimes they are told an answer and "investigate" to justify it. These investigations tend to result in "millions can be saved" reports.

OTOH, they do some excellent work - and likely the CAPS II report falls in that category.

Years ago my office mate was detailed to help GAO in a study of proposed hardware improvements at the US Post Office. Bob X., the GAO fellow, liked our clerical help better than that at GAO so he moved into our office for a few months.

My office-mate and Bob travelled abroad to see how other countries' Post Offices handled similar technology. Bob would phone ahead to the US Embassy and say he was from the GAO and would be arriving at so-and-so time. The US Ambassador's car would be at the airport to pick them up! That's the kind of fear that the GAO creates within the US Govt. Bob felt his job was to improve the operation of the Post Office, not to find fault. He would walk into the office of an Asst Postmater General and tell him of problems that the Post Office staff wasn't allowed to take that high. The US taxpayer certainly got their money's worth from Bob's salary.

So, the GAO is very powerful, though sometimes not entirely impartial.

sc

[weasil]

A telephone company overbilled me once and when I refused to pay they screwed up my credit report. It took years to fix! What would happen if i mistakenly got myself listed as a passenger of concern. Who would I be able to call to have that corrected?

This is just one of the many questions I have about this system.