CAPPS-II comments: 5,847 to 1 (and counting)

Since the last major update to my article, Total Travel Information Awareness, there have been major developments on several fronts related to the privacy of travel data: in Congress, in the European Union, and in the Department of Homeland Security (sic) and its Transportation Security Adminstration. I’ll try to catch up on these in separate articles as soon as I can. (If you’re just tuning in, read this first for background.)

Today the Chief Privacy Officer of the Department of Homeland Security posted 30 more comments on the CAPPS 2.1 proposal, sent by snail-mail and dated 19 August 2003 - 2 September 2003. The comment period didn’t end until 30 September 2003, but there’s still no sign of any of the comments filed by e-mail after 20 August 2003, or any of the comments filed after I exposed the jetBlue Airways scandal 16 September 2003. (And extra credit to everyone who can figure out how to find the comments from the DHS home page at www.dhs.gov, where they had promised they would be posted.)

Undoubtedly there are thousands more critical comments yet to be posted. But adding the latest 30 those already posted — all from before the jetBlue scandal — the score thus far is:

• 5,847 public comments against CAPPS-II
• 1 public comment for CAPPS-II
• 1 sales pitch from a data warehousing company hoping to get a piece of the CAPPS-II pie

Stay tuned for the final score — following the World Series, perhaps?