Joe Bob’s America: Airline Insecurity

NEW YORK, March 1 (UPI) -- They’re developing this super-duper airline computer system that can access every single piece of information from your entire life, including your grades in fourth-grade art class and the time you married a Mexican hooker for 48 hours in Juarez, and then analyze it with some kind of Bill Gates Intergalactic Software and determine your “threat rating.”

They’re gonna know this stuff as soon as you buy the ticket, even before you get to the airport. Every single person on every single flight will be ranked in order, from strongest threat to weakest threat. (I’m trying to figure out which is more flattering, because you know people are gonna start braggin about it.

“Hey, man, I scored an 88 on that Columbus-to-Nashville flight. It had to be either the DUIs or the mail-order Cuban cigars.”)

You know how every time you fill out an application that has your Social Security number on it, there’s always a statement on the back that says “This information will be used only for blah blah blah . . .” and “Your privacy is important to us . . .” and “We use a secure database that is never . . .”?

I always KNEW they wouldn’t be talking about it so much unless it has CROSSED THEIR MIND, you know?

Well, they lied.

Forget profiling. That was LAME compared to this. The new screening system, being developed by the federal government, the airlines and a bunch of security companies, is set up to profile your BRAIN, not your face.

The best analysis of it so far was by Robert O’Harrow Jr. of The Washington Post, and he talked to a former FAA administrator named Joseph Del Balzo who said: “This is not fantasy stuff. This technology . . . gives us a pretty good idea of what’s going on in a person’s mind.”

Excuse me, but I don’t particularly WANT the FAA to know what’s going on in my mind, especially if I’m fantasizing about the flight attendant. And from what I’ve seen of it so far, my own personal Terrorist Threat Index Ranking is gonna be off the goldurn scale.

Let’s just start with mailing addresses. This new system is gonna be able to sift back through all the places you’ve lived — which is not too surprising, since you can already pay a buck to a credit agency and get somebody’s various addresses going back 40 years. But if you’re somebody like ME, who camped out in ALL KINDS of places when I was a Struggling Wannabe Writer, there are gonna be some cheesy DIVES show up on that list.

“Ah-HA,” the computer is gonna say, “look at this West Philly communal rundown subdivided house with a creaky staircase and a ceiling fan that hasn’t worked since 1970. It’s the same place Abdullah bin-Gaziki lived for three months in 1992.”

Your CREDIT CARD transactions are gonna be in the system. (Is this even legal? I guess now EVERYTHING is legal.)

Once again, the first thing the computer is gonna say about me is, “Too damn many credit cards.” I can see myself dragged into the airport interrogation office, where my lame answer will be, “I don’t KNOW why I have them, Officer. They send me those THINGS in the mail, and I’m WEAK.”

There’s a whole section of the computer program that deals with “transactional analysis.” I vaguely remember this term from psychology class, but what it means here is People Who Buy Weird Stuff. “He rented a car on Thursday, but he turned it in on Friday and rented ANOTHER car. Hmmmmmmmmm.”

“Yes, Your Honor, I was displeased with the Ford Escort and I switched to a Taurus.”

“Can you PROVE THAT?”

And an entry goes down in your file: “Rented a Taurus for NO APPARENT REASON.”

They can find out what books you buy or check out of the library. This was actually part of the Patriot Act that nobody noticed until the feds started giving these weird subpoenas to book stores, demanding their customer sales lists, and part of the court order in the subpoena is that the book store CAN’T TELL ANYBODY THEY’VE BEEN SUBPOENAED. I know you think I’m making this up, because normally I WOULD be making it up, but sometimes the truth just blindsides you. It’s actually something I never even would have thought of. Makes you think twice about checking out “Lolita,” doesn’t it?

I know what you’re thinking, though. You’re thinking the Fair Credit Reporting Act — which prevents people SNOOPING on your buying habits — and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act — which prevents people finding out where you live from looking up driver’s license records — gives us at least a LITTLE protection.

Nope. They’re already going to Congress, saying they need to get rid of all that privacy protection stuff, because those are two databases they REALLY wanna have in the system.

Each computer profile in this new system would contain about a thousand pieces of information, including who you travel with — forget about taking the office intern to the Grand Caymans and trying to be cool about it — and what you own, what your income is, what magazines you subscribe to (“Soldier of Fortune” would probably be a bad idea), what all your telephone numbers are, who you call. And the idea is that the computer will decide who’s “normal” and who’s “abnormal.”

One thing considered abnormal is “odd” flying patterns. I hope some of my fellow Southwest Airlines regulars are reading this, because Southwest Airlines is ALL ABOUT odd flying patterns.

It’s apparently a point of pride at Southwest NEVER to fly to an airport anybody ELSE flies to. I’ve taken a one-hour train to Islip to get a fare that sends me to Baltimore, then Chicago, then Vegas, getting on a different plane in all three places. “Odd destinations” is another computer red flag. I’m not sure what that means, but I’m guessing taking the Baghdad-to-Bogota red-eye once a month would be bad form.

They’re gonna look at your restaurant bills (for “known criminal hangouts”). The computer is gonna print out your relatives and where THEY live. Criminal records are a given. (I was not guilty on any of the 17 charges, and besides, all but 12 of them were misdemeanors.)

They want passport comings-and-goings in there, “embassy warning” info (“Hey, this guy got picked up on Patpong Road and verbally abused a Thai cop”), and, of course, they wanna know about gun purchases and all the stuff the NRA hates to reveal.

My question about all this is, what if you’re just a weirdo? What if you collect Nazi memorabilia and have a charter subscription to Hustler magazine and eat lunch once a week in the Gambino family’s restaurant in Brooklyn because you like gangsters? What if you’re a death-metal fan who reads a fanzine called “Kill All Yuppies” and your email address is [email protected]? What if you’re just, you know, a typical American couch potato who has spent way too much time alone in your apartment, resulting in a strange fascination with Watusi-girl porn sites? What happens if they red-flag you as an airline “threat,” but find out along the way that you have 17 outstanding traffic warrants in Nebraska and your eight months behind on your child support in Minnesota? Does that become one of those “accidental” arrests, like when you stop a guy for a burned-out tail light and — whoops! -- six pounds of marijuana in the trunk!

One thing we know about this stuff is that, once they start asking questions about weirdness, they find out all KINDS of things that you’d probably rather not have to consider as the price of getting on an airplane to go visit your grandma. This is the kind of computer that J. Edgar Hoover always wanted. I think I’ll just take Amtrak.

(Joe Bob Briggs writes a number of columns for UPI and may be contacted at [email protected] or through his website at joebobbriggs.com. Snail mail: P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221.)