I don't know whether I'm more frightened, or angry, about this latest attack from Big Brother.
Airlines Told to Turn Over Passenger Data
Government Ordering Airlines to Turn Over Passenger Data to Test Terrorist Screening System
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON Sept. 22, 2004 - Information on passengers who took a commercial flight within the United States in June will be turned over to the government so it can test a new system for identifying potential terrorists.
People will have a chance to tell the government what they think about the plan during a 30-day comment period, federal officials said on Tuesday.
A previous plan was met with an overwhelmingly negative response. The proposed system, which cost $103 million, would have assigned a risk level to all airline passengers based on comparisons of their names with commercial databases. That plan was scrapped because of privacy concerns and technological issues.
Now, the Transportation Security Administration hopes to learn from its experience. The agency is pledging to protect passengers' privacy and taking steps to make sure the system is technologically feasible.
Privacy advocates and the airlines are skeptical.
"There are many people who are still going to find themselves in no-fly hell," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union.
The TSA plans to order air carriers to turn over the information in November. Passenger names will be checked against watch lists maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, which is administered by the FBI, as part of a new screening system called "Secure Flight."
Those lists include names of people to be selected for additional screening, known or suspected terrorists, and people prohibited from flying because they pose a direct threat to aviation.
Airlines currently check passenger names against watch lists. Because intelligence information is classified, however, airlines don't have access to names of all known or suspected terrorists. The Sept. 11 commission, in its July report, urged the government to take over the task of checking the lists.
Justin Oberman, who heads the TSA office that's developing Secure Flight, said he hopes the program can be implemented by spring.
Air Transport Association spokesman Doug Wills said airlines are reviewing the plan and will comment formally later.
Air carriers, he said, support the Secure Flight concept as a "smarter way to separate the good guys from the bad guys."
They still have the same problems that they had with the previous plan about privacy and mechanics of the plan, said Wills, whose group represents major airlines.
The airlines will have 30 days to comment on the proposed order, which Congress gave the TSA authority to issue in post-Sept. 11, 2001, laws. Air carriers will then have 10 days to turn over data called "passenger name records."
The amount of data in passenger name records varies by airline, but it typically includes name, flight origin, flight destination, flight time, duration of flight, seat location, travel agent and form of payment. It can also include credit card numbers, travel itinerary, address, telephone number and meal requests.
The ACLU's Steinhardt said the system is too intrusive.
"Why is it necessary for the TSA to know that you've ordered a kosher meal, or who you're sleeping with in your hotel room?" he said.
Steinhardt said the system still will allow people to be misidentified as potential terrorists, as some are now.
For example, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., were stopped at airports because people with their names appeared on watch lists. Kennedy said it took him three weeks and several calls to federal officials to clear up the confusion.
The TSA plans to set up procedures by which passengers can correct misinformation and by which civil liberties and personal data can be protected.
Privacy advocate Marcia Hofmann said that's something that should have been done already.
"Many of these privacy measures that the TSA talks about are purely discretionary," said Hofmann, staff counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "The agency can provide them at the agency's will."
The TSA also will conduct a limited test in which they'll compare passenger names with information from commercial databases to see if they can be used to detect fraud or identity theft.
Posted at September 22, 2004 01:33 PM in Social Order