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                USCBP-2005-0003-0005

Happy hunting.

For those who are interested in what is really going on here is the original Document : USCBP-2005-0003-0003 Passenger Manifests for Commercial Aircraft Arriving in and Departing From the United States; Passenger and Crew Manifests for Commercial Vessels Departing From the United States

I suppose it's worth to read the document to really understand what it is all about.

P.S. CBR already have the right to divert any airplane going to the USA if they believe that there are dangerous people onboard.

The primary purpose of this proposed rule is to prevent passengers that have been identified as high-risk on government watchlists from boarding aircraft bound for or departing from the United States and to prevent passengers and crew so identified from departing on vessels leaving the Unites States.

Go to http://www.regulations.gov/ and search with Keyword: USCBP-2005-0003 for the proposed rule.

http://hasbrouck.org/IDP/IDP-APIS-comments.pdf is an in depth commentary on the proposed rule.

Their assertions are backed up by a volume of evidence found in similar conspiracy theories. NONE WHATSOEVER.

I don't know exactly which assertions you are questioning, since you chose to be non-specific, but the gist of the conversation is confirmed by the Cost Benefit Analysis of the proposed regulation.

Quote: Executive Summary The primary purpose of this proposed rule is to prevent passengers that have been identified as high-risk on government watchlists from boarding aircraft bound for or departing from the United States and to prevent passengers and crew so identified from departing on vessels leaving the Unites States.

The crucial issue is that government watch lists are classified with no recourse for those misidentified. This is an important human rights and constitutional issue which has nothing to do with conspiracy theories.

I suppose I should expect this from the ever-ready-to do its research Slashdot, but where are the sources for this article?

If you look at this "news site's" front page, you'll see a lot of the traditional conspiracy rantings and, when you look particularly at the traditional Kennedy conspiracy nonsense so typical of sites that have completely fallen off their rocker.

This isn't a news site. There's no good sourcing (yes, I followed the URL at the end, see below). The reference stated to this document mentions no such restrictions as those found in the Slashdot summary or the article.

There are certainly privacy issues at stake, but nothing near what this ridiculous article or the Slashdot summary make it out to be.

This is just piss poor. I know Slashdot isn't a news site, so I don't expect it to research things as thoroughly as a journalist would (granted, I expect little of journalists as well).

The most pertinent part of the executive summary of the regulation proposal in question reads as follows:

The primary purpose of this proposed rule is to prevent passengers that have been
identified as high-risk on government watchlists from boarding aircraft bound for or
departing from the United States and to prevent passengers and crew so identified
from departing on vessels leaving the Unites States. On April 7, 2005, the Bureau of
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published requirements for the transmission of
passenger and crew manifests for aircraft and vessels arriving from foreign
destinations or departing to foreign destinations (70 FR 17820). Implementation of the
"2005 APIS Rule" (named for the Advance Passenger Information System, the CBP
electronic system used to obtain electronic manifest information from carriers)
required that information on passengers and crew to be transmitted: no later than 15
minutes after departure for arriving aircraft passengers; no later than 15 minutes prior
to departure for departing aircraft passengers; at least 60 minutes prior to departure
for arriving and departing aircraft crew; at least 24 hours and as much as 96 hours
prior to a vessel's entry at a US port for arriving passengers and crew, depending on
the length of the voyage; and 15 minutes prior to departure for departing vessel
passengers and crew.

Are there privacy issues here? You betcha. And they've been discussed here at length. Do they approach what the article and its summary here state they approach? Not at all. Read the rest of the proposed regulation.

Come on, slashdot. Treat us like adults. Give us primary source materials and avoid the conspiracy mumbo-jumbo.

I will say this, though - If I'm wrong, and you find some nuance in the document I missed, please post and inform me.

I'm afraid I don't take these "Friends of Liberty" folks at face value. Their assertions are backed up by a volume of evidence found in similar conspiracy theories. NONE WHATSOEVER.

Read the PDF listed at the bottom of the press release. The very first paragraph explains the source of their concerns:

The Identity Project submits these comments in response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) published at 71 Federal Register 40035-40048 (July 14, 2006), docket number USCBP-2005-0003-0003, and the associated "Regulatory Assessment" published July 18, 2006 on the Web site at http://www.regulations.gov/ and docketed as USCBP-2005-0003-0005.

In the guise of an NPRM alleged to propose a change only in the required timing of transmission of information already required to be provided to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the CBP has actually proposed a fundamental regulatory change with far-reaching (literally and figuratively) legal, policy, and logistical implications: The NPRM would replace a requirement for ex post facto notice to the CBP of information about who is on each vessel (ship or plane) with an unconstitutional system of prior restraint of international travel, entirely unauthorized by statute and inconsistent with the U.S. obligations embodied in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Here is the full docket in PDF format (took me a while to find it until I came across a Reddit comment that said to make sure you allow the search engine to search closed-for-comment documents...and when I did, it took the search engine a minute or more to find the document.)

I'm afraid I don't take these "Friends of Liberty" folks at face value. Their assertions are backed up by a volume of evidence found in similar conspiracy theories. NONE WHATSOEVER.

Read the PDF listed at the bottom of the press release. The very first paragraph explains the source of their concerns:

The Identity Project submits these comments in response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) published at 71 Federal Register 40035-40048 (July 14, 2006), docket number USCBP-2005-0003-0003, and the associated "Regulatory Assessment" published July 18, 2006 on the Web site at http://www.regulations.gov/ and docketed as USCBP-2005-0003-0005.

In the guise of an NPRM alleged to propose a change only in the required timing of transmission of information already required to be provided to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the CBP has actually proposed a fundamental regulatory change with far-reaching (literally and figuratively) legal, policy, and logistical implications: The NPRM would replace a requirement for ex post facto notice to the CBP of information about who is on each vessel (ship or plane) with an unconstitutional system of prior restraint of international travel, entirely unauthorized by statute and inconsistent with the U.S. obligations embodied in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Here is the full docket in PDF format (took me a while to find it until I came across a Reddit comment that said to make sure you allow the search engine to search closed-for-comment documents...and when I did, it took the search engine a minute or more to find the document.)

While I find it funny to ready everyone screaming "1984, 1984!!!", I wish people would do a little research. All this proposal does is change the time requirements on transmission of passenger manifests to a federal database from 15 minutes prior to departure to 60 minutes prior to departure. Here is an excerpt from the regulatory assesment:

"On April 7, 2005, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published requirements for the transmission of passenger and crew manifests for aircraft and vessels arriving from foreign destinations or departing to foreign destinations (70 FR 17820). Implementation of the "2005 APIS Rule" (named for the Advance Passenger Information System, the CBP electronic system used to obtain electronic manifest information from carriers) required that information on passengers and crew to be transmitted: no later than 15 minutes after departure for arriving aircraft passengers; no later than 15 minutes prior to departure for departing aircraft passengers; at least 60 minutes prior to departure for arriving and departing aircraft crew; at least 24 hours and as much as 96 hours prior to a vessel's entry at a US port for arriving passengers and crew, depending on the length of the voyage; and 15 minutes prior to departure for departing vessel passengers and crew.1, 2 Under this proposed rule, CBP intends to modify these requirements for arriving and departing aircraft passengers and passengers and crew on board departing vessels so that information is transmitted at least 60 minutes prior to departure. Under this requirement, passenger and crew manifests are transmitted to CBP in their entirety at least 60 minutes prior to departure. Alternatively, air carriers may develop APIS Quick Query in conjunction with CBP. AQQ allows carriers to vet individual passengers as they check in for their flights. Rather than transmitting an entire manifest at once, carriers using AQQ will transmit APIS data to CBP as each individual checks in for the flight. These changes will enhance the ability of CBP and other law enforcement agencies to plan and coordinate a more effective response to intercept high-risk individuals before boarding aircraft."

To read the full Regulatory Assesment, go here

all executive agencies operate PRECISELY by decree. EPA? They make the rules with no review. The FAA? FCC? DoEd? DoEn? The executive branch is allowed to issue mandates that have the full weight of law, ergo they are law.

Rule making follows an established process, is subject to law and Congressional oversight, and review by the Courts. You can even participate by commenting on proposed rules. There is also Presidential guidance and oversight of the rule making process. The world is far too complex and rapidly changing for Congress to have to pass a law about everything.

After TWA 800 went down President Clinton issued executive order 13039, eliminating whistleblower protection from the members of the primary recovery team: the president wanted to change the law so he changed the law by decree.

Sorry, but no.

Supposedly, putting an RFID tag in a microwave will kill it (make it no longer workable). This is an easy fix for those who don't want people nearby to read their passport info.

According to the proposal:

That sort of answers a few of your questions (although it's sort of an ambigous answer -- disabling the RFID is grounds for invalidation, but you can travel without the RFID? I don't get it). Have you submitted your comments yet?

There are two things really, federal LAWS and federal RULES. LAWS are made in the legislative branch (Congress). RULES are made in the executive branch; rulemaking is why they call various oufits such as the FDA, FAA or FCC "regulatory bodies" (from latin "regula" meaning rule). Their rulemaking powers come from what's known as "enabling legislation", generally a public law that includes language authorizing the subject office/bureau/agency to make rules within various limits. For example, the FAA derives its authority to make rules from the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, as amended (49 USC 106). Many people are familiar with the public-input process for lawmaking, in which we write to representatives and senators. Fewer are aware that public input into rulemaking is actually now easier than ever. Check out one of the more useful websites in existence for US people who wish to act as public citizens. Although, given the sheer number of regulations in process at any given time, trying to keep up is quite overwhelming. Especially if, like me, you are not a lawyer!

It is interesting that you link to the GPO website for the FR rather than the NARA site. The official record keeper and editor of the FR is NARA, wheras the GPO is just responsible for the physicial reproduction and publication. Both run websites, but I find the NARA site to be much better. Also don't forget their joint website Regulations.Gov which went online earlier this year to try to better track proposed regulations still in their comment period and keep the US public better informed.

For those who don't know, the Federal Register is perhaps the most important function of the US National Archives, and most relevent to US citizens' day-to-day activities. I especially like the fact the that NARA FR website is updated daily with each new issue, including a very well organized table of contents. Furthermore each "publication" within the FR is available in both text and PDF format (no proprietary MS formats here!).

Perhaps of the few things which I would like to see improved are: (1) online avilability of FR issues prior to 1998, (2) more frequent revision of the CFR, (3) easier cross reference between issues, dates, and page numbers, (4) an RSS feed of the daily table of contents, (5) FTP access to the FR, and (6) digitally signed (GPG?) issues.

As far as the functional duties of the NARA, keeping the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and so forth are incredibly important, but usually don't affect the citizen directly...those historic documents' power really is expressed indirectly by governing what Congress can do and how the Justice department works...they are just the framework on which the bulk of the legislation and regulations hang. Please don't get me wrong, those foundational documents are what defines the US and and our freedoms, and as such are the most important documents we have. But seriously those documents are very stable and unchanging and don't require much action on the part of the NARA to maintain beyond being just a glorified museum.

But the NARA is right at the center of the US government and has duties way more important than playing museum.

The Federal Register is where the many thousands and thousands of highly detailed regulations, notices, presidental orders and so forth are recorded. It is the very presence of these writings in the Federal Register which makes them official and binding on the US citizens. The Federal Register is the primary means by which the government informs the country about what it expects us to do and not do. And it is the NARA which has the ultimately important responsibility of recording what's official and what's not. That's an incredibly powerful position if you think about it.

From the Privacy and Use page

Comments may be submitted through this website, or by any method identified in the specific Federal Register notice. Any comment you provide through this website should be submitted in accordance with the directions in the Federal Register notice for the regulation you are commenting on. You should be aware that requirements for submitting comments may vary by agency, and some agencies impose special requirements for the submission of information, such as confidential business information or copyrighted works. For further information, follow directions in the specific Federal Register notice, or contact the specific agency directly.

Comment on the proposed Do Not Call Registry. (I support it!)