The Friendly Skies: This kind of hits close to home for me considering a do a good bit of traveling, and I often obsess over it, not for fear of terrorists, but because of potential delays.

The Washington post is reporting that federal aviation authorities are considering keeping an extensive database of traveler information that would allow them to profile potential terrorists. This would include address histories and other personal information that might provide indications of a potential problem.

Here's the example they give:

It might find, for instance, that one man used a debit card to buy tickets for four other men who sit in separate parts of the same plane -- four men who have shared addresses in the past. Or it might discern an array of unusual links and travel habits among passengers on different flights.

That sounds fairly innocuous.

Naturally, the civil liberties groups are in arms about this, calling it a "massive surveillance program". That's a fairly overheated criticism. Such a system could be limited to checking airline passengers. It also doesn't sound like they are going to ask for info such as your gross income or whether you wear boxers or briefs. Plus, they are not talking about throwing anyone in jail over this, just singling them out for a more thorough search.

Sure, it could be abused, but then anything can be abused. And like always, if stuff is abused, lawsuits fly and things get sorted out in that painfully imperfect way they do. I don't know if it's any more unreasonable than the random searches of luggage they do now, where a mom with three kids is as likely to be searched as a shoe-bomber.

In fact, I can easily see that tying in with the notion of a trusted traveler card:

Trusted-traveler cards would authorize passengers to bypass extensive security screening at airport checkpoints. The Israeli government instituted a trusted-traveler program five years ago in an effort to speed up long lines at airport security checkpoints.

The electronic card would have an encoded biometric description of the owner to ensure that the person using it is the same person identified on the card. Biometrics refers to computerized systems that identify a unique part of each person's anatomy, such as fingerprints, facial structure or irises.

I think that's nifty. I have visions of sliding my card through a reader and waltzing through security without hesitation. Combine that with e-tickets and your two-hour airport cushion gets cut by about seventy-five percent.

Again, privacy advocates are alarmed by this, claiming it's a back door to a national ID tracking system that will be abused. Chill guys. Unless it's made mandatory, I don't see that either.

Maybe it could be made to store all my frequent flyer info, too.

On The Other Hand..: Hunter S. Thompson says:

It will not be long before all major airlines will require all passengers to disrobe and change into standard Hospital gowns before they board a plane. This is already in the planning stage, according to a lawyer from Miami who also assures me that sleeping gas will be introduced later this year on flights of 40 minutes or longer. "The gas has already been market tested," he said. "Passengers are heavily in favor of it."

I could do without the hospital gown, but the gas sounds good to me.