Reply #21: A quote from your links, and some questions

[Sparkly]

...Clark worked for Acxiom, which recently which won a contract to work on Capps II, the federal government’s airline passenger screening system. He did lobby for Acxiom as it worked to help in security screening of Americans after the 9/11 attack. Officials said he lobbied a range of government officials including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vice President Cheney, and John Poindexter, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency head who resigned under fire. He also met with the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Insiders say that while working with Acxiom, Clark pushed for privacy restrictions on the data that could be mined on Americans and U.S. visitors. In fact, he is credited with urging Poindexter to meet with privacy experts, one of whom allegedly leaked DARPA’s plan to mine private databases for info on alleged terrorists.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/archive/january2004.htm

As I recall, the 1996 Gore Commission also recommended passenger screening, which could well have prevented 9/11 if the Republicans hadn't laughed it off without letting it out of committee. After the attacks, screening became inevitable (witness "no-fly lists" and passenger "flags"). Given that, it seems to me the choice is between a less-intrusive way to go about it and a more-intrusive way. And it seems to me that's more a question of government policy than available technology.

What privacy did the Acxiom technology Clark promoted violate, that isn't already known, or wouldn't be known in another way? Was there a way to prevent that breach of privacy; or did Acxiom cause it? There's already spyware; our SS#'s are all over the place; just for being a teacher, I've been fingerprinted; there's video surveillance in everything from banks to 7-11's; I'm not sure why Acxiom's version of screening is such anathema. Serious questions, not rhetorical.