Stanford Center for Internet and Society

In January 2003, the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) issued a request for comments (RFC) on proposed “Passenger and Aviation Security Screening Records”. This program, dubbed “CAPPS II”, would primarily support the development of a new version of the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, Whenever the federal government starts to collect records on individuals, the Privacy Act requires it to describe how the information will be collected and used. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) along with over 200 other organizations and individuals initially complained that the TSA had not released enough information about the CAPPS system to enable informed comments to be presented. Since then, the TSA has issued a second CAPPS II Privacy Act notice describing changes in the original proposal, and now seeks additional comments. Clinic students will work with client EPIC to prepare comments to submit to the TSA on this issue.