Airlines Go From Friendly Skies to A Flying Police State

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"The travel industry and civil liberties groups are sharply
objecting to government plans for a new airline passenger
screening program .... . The proposed program ... would involve
electronic checking of the credit
records and criminal histories, along with checking whether
the passenger is on watch lists of suspected terrorists.
The screening would be done by the federal Transportation
Security Administration. ... Based on the results, each traveler would be
assigned a
risk level. Those deemed to pose a danger would be barred
from flights. The critics worry how the information about
other passengers - whose risk rating will appear in
encrypted form on boarding passes - will be used and
protected from abuse. ... The program has so angered some passengers that
a movement
is brewing on the Internet for a boycott of Delta if it
carries out the test of the system, known as CAPPS II, for
Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System."