http://dmses.dot.gov/submit/dspSubmission.cfm

OST-1996-1437
Privacy Act of 1974; Implementation

I am writing to convey my strong opposition to the Department of
Transportation's proposed exemption of risk assessments and the information
contained in those assessments from the Privacy Act 1974.  By mining large
amounts of information about every passenger, and not allowing passengers
any means to ensure the correctness of such information, the proposed rule
risks creating a permanent underclass who would always be subjected to
intrusive searches or even denied the right to travel freely.  The very idea
of a government bureaucracy that routinely maintains secret files on
individuals who have never committed any crime is anathema to a free society.
This Orwellian intrusion on individual privacy is the very injustice that the
Privacy Act was aimed at preventing.  It seems the height of underhandedness
for a federal agency to attempt to create such a system by means of executive
rule-making when a similar proposal, the Total Information Awareness system,
was so recently soundly defeated in Congress.  At the very least, such a
profound curtailment of privacy rights deserves more visible, legislative
debate.  For all these reasons, the proposed rule should be withdrawn.