Few changes made in treatment of travelers’ terrorism potential ratings

Rejecting a wave of criticisms, the government has agreed to only modest changes in the computerized system that assesses whether each American who travels abroad poses a terrorist threat.\nThe Department of Homeland Security will keep the risk assessments of people it has decided are not threats for 15 years instead of 40 years and no longer will share them with federal, state and local officials who are deciding whether a person gets a job, a security clearance, a license to do business or a government contract.\nNevertheless, travelers still will not be allowed to see their actual assessments or the reasons for them. Federal agents still will be looking at an array of information about international travelers – Americans and foreigners; this includes meal choices, the names of traveling companions and the number of hotel beds requested.\n“The revisions are useful, but they don’t go to the heart of the matter,” said James Dempsey, policy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties group. “Why should the government keep massive databases about people it has decided are innocent?”\nThe department’s decision to continue the Automated Targeting System with few changes took effect last Thursday. It was announced in advance by an August notice in the Federal Register, a daily catalog of federal regulations that is read mostly by lawyers and lobbyists.\nThe computerized system is used by Customs and Border Protection officers to screen 400 million passengers a year who arrive from or depart for foreign locations by air, sea or rail. A separate part of the system is used for vehicles crossing the border.\nMembers of Congress, business travel associations, privacy and civil liberties groups and even European legislators protested after the Homeland Security disclosed details of the system last fall for the first time; it went into service in 1999.\nSome critics said the entire program was illegal; others wanted parts of it changed.\nBut the department said the system was crucial to preventing terrorists and other criminals from entering the United States, and helps border officers decide which travelers to pull aside for further scrutiny.