Politech: EFF's action alert calls for hearings on CAPPS II [priv]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 11:09:17 -0800
From: Donna Wentworth <donna () eff org>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Privacy Villain: NASA/Northwest redux

Hi Declan,

I thought you and the Politech list would be interested to know that EFF 
has a current action alert on this, in which we call for a Congressional 
investigation and hearings on the reportedly common, "ad hoc" transfer of 
passengers' private information from the airlines to the government. We 
also call for the suspension of all "live" testing of CAPPS II.  The 
airlines and the government cannot be allowed to continue using people as 
guinea pigs for the system until we have answers about who has gained 
access to our private information and why.
<http://action.eff.org/index.asp?step=2&item=2854>

Regards,
Donna

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Also see:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58300-2004Jan28.html

Clark, the Four-Star Businessman
General Parlayed Stature Into Big Income Boost as Lobbyist and Consultant

By Ben White and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 29, 2004; Page A01

Wesley K. Clark could not keep quiet for long. The meeting with Vice 
President Cheney on July 16, 2002, had started with casual banter. But the 
retired four-star general quickly cut off the chitchat, grasping his chair 
and sliding it next to Cheney's.
"Mr. Vice President, we know you only have a short time, and we have some 
very important matters to discuss," Clark said, according to a person who 
attended the session. "So if you don't mind, I'd like to just jump into the 
meeting." Cheney nodded, and Clark raced through a 10-minute summation of 
what Acxiom, a Little Rock firm that collects and sorts detailed consumer 
data on virtually every American, could do to aid the war on terrorism.
Cheney digested the presentation, which focused on verifying the identities 
of airline passengers, then peppered Clark and Acxiom lead executive 
Charles D. Morgan with questions about how to use the data without 
infringing on consumer privacy rules.
Seven months later, Acxiom won a Department of Homeland Security 
subcontract to help create CAPPS II, a passenger-screening database 
considered one of the largest surveillance programs ever devised. The 
government has delayed implementing CAPPS II, in part because of privacy 
concerns, but the contract was Clark's biggest success in his brief career 
as a Washington lobbyist.
Clark's lobbying was one of many business activities that, by his account, 
boosted his income almost 20-fold in the 42 months between his resignation 
from the Army and the start of his presidential campaign last September.
...
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