WASHINGTON – The Homeland Security Department’s newly revealed computerized risk assessments of international travelers may violate a specific ban that Congress imposed as part of the agency’s budget over the past three years.
Some members of Congress and privacy advocates on Thursday questioned the legality of Automated Targeting System, or ATS, risk assessments that have been assigned to millions of Americans and foreigners who entered or left the United States over the past four years.
ATS has operated with little public notice or understanding until a description was published last month in the Federal Register, a fine print compendium of federal rules.
“It clearly goes contrary to what we have in law,” said Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn. He said ATS is the kind of computerized risk assessment “we have been trying to prohibit.”
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said: “I don’t think it (the prohibition) can be read as applying to this program. The statute doesn’t bar the use of funds for the purpose of analyzing the risks for people entering the country.”
Department spokesman Russ Knocke said Congress was informed many times since 2003 that ATS was being used to assess people.
Sabo, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, wrote into the agency’s spending bills the ban on computerized passenger risk assessments. For the past three budget years, the legislation has said no funds from the appropriations bill could be used to develop or test data-mining tools “assigning risk to passengers whose names are not on government watch lists.”
“They keep going off on these wild scenarios on a regular basis,” Sabo said. “They should concentrate on making their watch lists comprehensive and correctable.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, agreed. “There is growing concern in Congress that this program invites abuse, and that the administration is plowing ahead with it in apparent violation of the law,” said Leahy, incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The department’s operation of ATS since the ban was passed might violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, which bars government officials from spending money not appropriated by Congress, according to several critics.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
