TSA violating privacy, and what is the Dept. of Homeland Security smoking?

It's fascinating how some companies just trample over federal laws and lie about it. These people at TSA (the company developing Secure Flight) should be arrested.

Secure Flight is a disaster in every way. The TSA has been operating with complete disregard for the law or Congress. It has lied to pretty much everyone. And it is turning Secure Flight from a simple program to match airline passengers against terrorist watch lists into a complex program that compiles dossiers on passengers in order to give them some kind of score indicating the likelihood that they are a terrorist.

To make it even scarier, the Department of Homeland Security (so-called) is pushing for less independent Congressional oversight, and to allow the TSA to use commercial databases to invade our privacy. So we don't need Congressional oversight because we can trust TSA?!?! These Homeland security people are obviously delusional. I really don't see why we let drug users try to keep us safe. You're not making any sense, Mr. President.

"It boggles the mind that after you start with a strong position against commercial data and then you have the agency caught red-handed doing things it said it would not do -- that the GAO has said were unlawful -- then for Congress to say, 'Oh, that doesn't matter, in fact, you can do it some more if you explain it,'" Tien said. "That doesn't make any sense if you care about privacy."

The Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, said in March that Secure Flight had yet to pass nine out of 10 tests required for certification.