Re: airport safeguards

[Maury Siskel <maurysis@ev1.net>]

http://www.disastercenter.com/911_10.htm



Follows an extract from the above Disaster Center. Clearly related to 

questions of airport security, but not directly to radiation safety. 

Thought some might be interested beside Jose R.



"There are a large number of indexes used by law enforcement agencies 

around the United States. These have to some extent been combined at an 

expense of over 400 million dollars. The most likely indexes to be used 

for background checks prior to boarding commercial airlines are the 

NICS: Prohibited Persons Index (PPI) and the National Crime Information 

Center files.



There are over one million names in the PPI. This index includes 

individuals who were denied the right to purchase a firearm, illegal and 

unlawful aliens’ records, controlled substance abuse records, 

dishonorable discharges, individuals who have renounced their 

citizenship, and mental defectives.



There are over a million and one half names in the National Crime 

Information Center files. These include wanted persons, foreign 

fugitives, deported felons, protective order file, convicted persons on 

supervised release and the national sex offender registry.



If the souce data only consisted of the names of passengers and were 

matched against the indexes the results would be useless. If names were 

matched at the rate of Senator Kennedy's name is matched, these two and 

half million names would generate around 80 million people being matched 

with names. At the frequency of Congressman John Lewis’ name is matched, 

these two and half million names would generate over ten billion 

matches, four billion more matches than the population of the planet.



What the 911 Commission is proposing to do to mitigate this and other 

related problems is for the States to issue some form of biometrics 

identification. To associate the biometrics of each person with a name 

in the index, every person granted such a biometrics would have to be 

matched against criminal history indexes. Given the current costs of 

running an FBI fingerprint check it can be roughly estimated that this 

process would cost around ten dollars a person, or roughly 3 billion 

dollars per person to cover every person in the United States. This 

would not include the capital costs of the verification system. ... "



Cheers,

Maury Siskel maurysis@ev1.com





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