TSA WANTS VA AND DOD RECORDS TO SCREEN FOR "MENTAL DEFECTIVES" --

A NEW TSA DATABASE COULD PUT SOME VETERANS ON THE "WATCH LIST"

AND KEEP THEM OFF COMMERCIAL FLIGHTS

If you stop and think about it...it just had to happen.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is looking for a contractor to put together some new databases to help with screening passengers getting on commercial flights.  And, they want to look at military records in DoD files and VA files to search for "mental defectives."

We have three stories here.

The first story is here as reported in Government Security News... http://www.gsnmagazine.com/dec_05/tsa_check.html

Quote of note:  The computer system, known as the Transportation Threat Assessment and Credentialing Screening Gateway, already consults a variety of government-compiled record systems, such as Social Security files and FBI criminal records, but TSA is now planning additions to the list of records it will examine.

“Examples of new data sources would be DoD files for military service histories or VA files for lists of persons who have been declared mental defectives,” said a “sources sought” notice posted online by TSA on Nov. 15, as it begins to search for a vendor to manage the computer system.

The second story came from NPR and their program Talk of the Nation... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5051753

The above is an audio story.  One of the interviewees is Jeff Stein, National Security Editor at the Congressional Quarterly. 

Stein's story is here... http://www.cq.com/public/20051209_homeland.html

Quote of note:  Is there an efficient, legal way to keep crazy people off airplanes altogether, like the manic depressive man shot dead at the Miami airport last week?

As it turns out, the government was taking steps in that direction almost a month before Rigoberto Alpizar was plugged by U.S. air marshals after he ran down the Jetway with a bundle in his hands while saying, according to the government, that he had a bomb.

A Nov. 15 notice put out by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is always thinking about new ways to keep potentially dangerous people off our airliners, states TSA is looking for contractors to add a number of new databases for screening passengers and airport workers.

Up first are the files of the Defense Department (DoD) and Veterans Administration (VA), which the TSA says it wants scoured for “mental defectives.”

If someone had told me this, I wouldn't have believed them.  But, there you have it.

I just wonder how far we are going to go in our desire to be "secure."

And, I also wonder about these HUGE government databases that are being built.  Who will have access to this information?  When private contractors design and build the databases...the information is up for grabs.

Larry Scott

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