Almost every week, it seems, there is a new effort to undermine what little is left of our privacy. As a recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) puts it, while privacy is not yet dead, it is on life support.

And the plug can be pulled at any moment.

Just last week, word leaked out that Delta Airlines will experiment with a new system at three unidentified airports this month that will compile background information on potential passengers and assign a threat level to everyone who purchases a ticket.

Transportation officials acknowledge that they plan to select a contractor to establish a national computer system for all airlines that would check such things as a passenger’s credit reports and banking activity before comparing those names with persons on government watch lists.

It requires no stretch of the imagination to suspect that “driving while Black” will now become “flying while Black.” Protestations by government officials not withstanding, racial profiling will shift from the ground to the air.

Airlines already take steps to screen suspicious passengers, such as paying particular attention to flyers who purchase one-way tickets with cash. And there is no evidence that the system, called Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening Systems or CAPPS II, will be any more effective than before. After all, 11 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were flagged by CAPPS I but were not prevented from boarding because they didn’t check luggage.

The latest revelation about Delta comes on the heels of disclosures that the Justice Department, having already gained expansive powers through the USA Patriot Act passed two years ago in the wake of the Sept. 11, is proposing new legislation that will bypass some traditional checks and balances, criminalize legitimate forms for protest and expand the use of wiretaps and warrantless searches on persons not suspected of engaging in terrorism-related activities.

“The explosion of computers, cameras, sensors, wireless communication, GPS, biometrics, and other technologies in just the last 10 years is feeding a surveillance monster that is growing silently in our midst,” the ACLU says in its report, “Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society.”

The report observes, “It doesn’t require some apocalyptic vision of American democracy being replaced by dictatorship to worry about a surveillance society. There is a lot of room for the United States to become a meaner, less open and less just place without any radical change in government. All that’s required is the continued construction of new surveillance technologies and the simultaneous erosion of privacy protections.”

The ACLU notes:

* A survey of surveillance cameras in Manhattan found that it is impossible to walk around the city without being recorded nearly every step of the way;

* Several airports, a handful of cities and the National Park Service operation at the Statue of Liberty have installed face recognition technology that could infringe on the privacy of citizens;

* Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) wants to explore the possibility of the using unmanned aircrafts or drones not only overseas but domestically;

* On the Internet, every mouse click can be recorded, tracked and profiled. Government official can get access to this information with the user’s knowledge;

* The relentless commercialization of medical information, such as DNA, has led to a breakdown of the longstanding tradition of doctor-patient confidentiality;

* Under the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act passed in 1999, financial institutions can sell customers’ financial information to anyone they choose;

* The government has mandated that manufacturers make cell phones capable of automatically reporting their location when an owner dials 911. That means phone companies can also collect and share other information about the locations and movements of their customers and

* All cars built today contain devices similar to aircraft “black boxes.” The ACLU report says the devices can “tattle” on car owners to the police or insurance investigators.

“Some think comprehensive public tracking will make no difference, since life in public places is not ‘private’ in the same way as life inside the home. This is wrong; such tracking would represent a radical change in American life,” the ACLU report says.

“A woman who leaves her house, drives to a store, meets a friend for coffee, visits a museum, and then returns home may be in public all day, but her life is still private in that she is the only one who has an overall view of how she spent her days,” the report says. “In America, she does not expect that her activities are being watched or tracked in any systematic way—she expects to be left alone. But if current trends continue, it will be impossible to have any contact with the outside world that is not watched or recorded.”