This is one of those stories you will find either spooky or comforting, depending on your political outlook and how much faith you have in government's ability to protect us: Whether entering or leaving the U.S. by plane, car, foot, or other means, all travelers will soon be subject to security screening and profiling by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The Washington Post reported Nov. 3 that a notice published in the Federal Register revealed that a new border-security program will include creating terrorism risk profiles on Americans and others, with information kept on file for up to 40 years. Some such profiling already is taking place at airports, but not at land border crossings.

Some call the profiling intrusive and an invasion of privacy. "They are assigning a suspicion level to millions of law-abiding citizens," David Sobel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told the Post. "This is about as Kafkaesque as you can get."

Government workers will check names of travelers against terrorist watch lists and other data services to decide if their background or behavior makes them a security risk. Every traveler would be assigned a score; the higher the score, the higher the presumed risk.

The information would be kept for decades "to cover the potentially active lifespan of individuals associated with terrorism or other criminal activities," according to the Federal Register notice. Even data on low-risk travelers will be retained because "the risk assessment for individuals who are deemed low risk will be relevant if their risk profile changes in the future, for example, if terrorist associations are identified."