It's Going On Your Permanent Record

The Department of Homeland Security has brought the classic threat of elementary school forward into the brave new world of Bushian surveillance.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Without their knowledge, millions of Americans and foreigners crossing U.S. borders in the past four years have been assigned scores generated by U.S. government computers rating the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals.

The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.

The government calls the system critical to national security following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Some privacy advocates call it one of the most intrusive and risky schemes yet mounted in the name of anti-terrorism efforts.

Virtually every person entering and leaving the United States by air, sea or land is scored by the Homeland Security Department's Automated Targeting System, or ATS. The scores are based on ATS' analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.

The use of the program on travelers was quietly disclosed earlier this month when the department put a notice detailing ATS in the Federal Register, a fine-print compendium of federal rules. The few civil liberties lawyers who had heard of ATS and even some law enforcement officers said they had thought it was only used to screen cargo.

The Homeland Security Department called the program ''one of the most advanced targeting systems in the world'' and said the nation's ability to spot criminals and other security threats ''would be critically impaired without access to this data.''

But to David Sobel, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group devoted to civil liberties in cyberspace: ''It's probably the most invasive system the government has yet deployed in terms of the number of people affected.''

I can't even remember the last time I was able to order an airline meal, but apparently the government will be keeping track.

Not that I'll be able to get the information from them.

The government notice says some or all of the ATS data about an individual may be shared with state, local and foreign governments for use in hiring decisions and in granting licenses, security clearances, contracts or other benefits. In some cases, the data may be shared with courts, Congress and even private contractors.

''Everybody else can see it, but you can't,'' Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration lawyer who teaches at Cornell Law school, said in an interview.

What happens if inaccurate information gets into the system?

Nevertheless, Ahern said any traveler who objected to additional searches or interviews could ask to speak to a supervisor to complain. Homeland Security's privacy impact statement said that if asked, border agents would hand complaining passengers a one-page document that describes some, but not all, of the records that agents check and refers complaints to Custom and Border Protection's Customer Satisfaction Unit.

Is there anyone here who imagines that the Customer Sastisfaction Unit will be able to do more than prolong a Kafka-esque bureaucratic nightmare? (There was no mention of whether asking to speak to a supervisor would raise your score, but it seems like a piece of data someone will want to record.)

Homeland Security's statement said travelers can use this office to obtain corrections to the underlying data sources that the risk assessment is based on, but not to the risk assessment itself. The risk assessment changes automatically if the source data changes, the statement explained.

So, if you are successful in going back and getting the airline to admit that its reservation clerk made a mistake and you did not, in fact, order a halal meal, AND you get them to send a correction to DHS, presumably your score will change "automatically." Skeptical? You're not alone.

''I don't buy that at all,'' said Jim Malmberg, executive director of American Consumer Credit Education Support Services, a private credit education group. Malmberg said it has been hard for citizens, including members of Congress and even infants, to stop being misidentified as terrorists because their names match those on anti-terrorism watch lists. He noted that while the government plans to keep the risk assessments for 40 years, it doesn't intend to keep all the underlying data they are based on for that long.

I doubt many of the sources of that underlying data keep it, either. How long do you think airlines keep their records of meals and seat assignments?

So the government will be generating a risk assessment, which it will share widely, based on unknown sources and formulae, that could quite probably keep people from getting jobs, or promotions, or loans. Or make someone liable for secret wiretaps. Or which may end up as the pretext for declaring someone an enemy combatant. And how long until someone at DHS has the bright idea to link domestic travel into the database? Or voter registrations?

All this from an administration that had to be sued to restore the housing aid it cut from Hurricane Katrina victims, in a process the judge called "Kafka-esque."

Are you feeling safer? Me neither.