Paul Corson reports:
The head of the Transportation Security Administration says airline travelers could minimize their exposure during the screening process by disclosing more about themselves up-front.
TSA Administrator John Pistole, in a speech Thursday to a lawyers’ group, said the use of detailed identity profiles would be part of a shift toward the greater use of intelligence to try to disrupt potential terrorist activity against commercial flights.
“There are groups of people out there, the very frequent travelers who are willing to provide information,” Pistole said, so that for a fee, “if you don’t want to stand in line, here’s what we can do.”
Pistole said passenger identification would be more stringent than the typical name, date of birth and gender now required to board a jetliner, that he said is “not much to go on.”
He said a trusted traveler program would apply to “those individuals who are willing to disclose more information about themselves in exchange for a different level of screening.”
Pistole did not describe what elements in the screening process a passenger could avoid, saying only it would involve “more identity-based screening than the physical screening.”
Read more on CNN
Sounds like extortion to me: give us all your personal details if you don’t want to be humiliated and have your genitalia touched?
Congress better straighten this out and as a priority item. Look how quickly they introduce bills to protect themselves after the Tucson shooting. Let them introduce bills to protect the innocent public from government assault in the name of sham “security.”