The Washington Post reports on the Safe and Pleasant World of Tomorrow:

Federal aviation authorities and technology companies will soon begin testing a vast air security screening system designed to instantly pull together every passenger's travel history and living arrangements, plus a wealth of other personal and demographic information.

To smooth our way into the Safe and Pleasant World of Tomorrow, travel industry officials are quietly hobnobbing with Congress about "the possible need to roll back some privacy protections in the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Driver's Privacy Protection Act".

Information in the system will be at least as reliable as that in the national credit bureaus. In fact, one of them, Equifax, is involved in one of the prototype efforts, as is Accenture, the former Andersen Consulting division. Isn't that reassuring?

Rights concerns are minimal, of course, since no one is obligated to use the system. If you don't want your living arrangements, travel history and demographic data to be collated and spit out on demand, just stay in your room and never go anywhere.