The former Director of the US Office of National Risk Assessment, which ran the now defunct CAPPS II aviation screening program (it's been replaced, regular readers will be aware, with the "Secure Flight" system), has decided to commercialise the system which cost the US government about $100 million.

Ben H. Bell III, who has also been an intelligence official with the Immigration and Naturalization service, has become CEO of Global Information Group based in the Bahamas, where he plans, according to the Washington Post to

"use some of the same concepts, technology and contractors [as CAPPS II]to assess people for risk, outside the reach of U.S. regulators, according to documents and interviews."

Global's founder, Donald Thibeau says:

"You can realize the CAPPS dream in the commercial world... We live in a world where data can go anywhere and be warehoused anywhere."

Peter Swire, who was the privacy chief in the Clinton administration has a different perspective:

"As a business matter, there are layers of legal protections and public relations protections they can get by going offshore... It might meet business interests, but not necessarily the public interest."

I have a question - what is the perspective of the US government on an offshore company entity commercialising something they have spent tens of millions of dollars developing? Will they, for example, get to negotiate reduced rates for access to the databases created?