Slashdot Mirror
EU Agrees to Give Passenger Data to U.S.
de la mettrie writes "The EU Commission has agreed in principle to make airlines provide U.S. Homeland Security with detailed passenger data for flights to the USA. Things Uncle Sam would like to know about passengers include their itinerary, their credit card number and whether or not they asked for a meal without pork. The data are supposed to help prevent terror attacks and are to be 'handled appropriately'." The U.S. is collecting the data for a massive passenger database, intended to increase passenger profiling.
whether or not they asked for a meal without pork
So, being an vegetarian makes me a TERRORIST! Damn.
If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving definitely isn't for you.
I'm not sure that airlines serve meals with any sort of meat, nevermind pork!
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
There's a concept of personal privacy called a reasonable expectation of privacy. For instance, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy if you are in public, but you do if you are in your own home. I would say that putting your meal preference in Expedia precludes any reasonable expectation of privacy.
Why, so it can be in the same database that got hacked by anonymous crackers, to even the field between European and American credit card security!
Seriously though, I'm surprised European governments are allowing such infriction on the privacy of us, its citizens, and by a foreign government no less, who has no business whatsoever sticking its nose into my personal data.
If they want the information, they should go get it on their own soil. Demand all passengers landing in the US to disclose their credit card numbers, for example. That would lead to passenger uproar, you say? So where is the difference between candidly asking a passenger his credit card number, and sneakily procuring it from his airline company behind his back and without his explicit consent or even knowledge?
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
...and those who are moderating them up, nothing was said in the article about meal choice, and at least it seemed to me that the implication was that the credit card numbers just happen to be part of the record; they're not specifically being asked for. (Of course, I do wonder why they need the full record, and can't just extract the necessary information and leave the CC #'s and such out of it.)
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Sure, this can be seen as an invasion of privacy. While this is terrible and unfortunate, the fact of the matter is there currently exists some very terrible, murderous people in this world that are willing to do things that have never really been done before, in order to accomplish their task of murder.
I dislike the facts of this modern reality just as much as the next person. Unfortunately, there isn't much that the US Government can do to protect its citizens (which is a big component of government) and preserve the way life has been.
There simply is no other way to rectify this issue. Even if the US pulled out of the Middle East and swore off the oil habit and simply ceased dealing with that part of the world. The minds behind these murderous fundamentalists would not change. They would still plan their assaults and still carry out what they are able to carry out.
Living in this day and age is simple one of those most frustrating of times to live in.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
When will governments understand that Sept 11 was based on the premise of surprise. The nutters on the plane did not even have guns. They had little forks and knifes. They used the element of surprise to carry out their attack.
And when will governments realize that these terrorists DO NOT use technology. The problem is that when you use technology to figure out profiles, it assumes that others are using technology as well.
Of course the current administration cannot be blamed alone, the EU is going along lock stock and barrel.....
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I swear, this country is tearing itself apart with self-induced paranoia.
You know I've been wondering about this, because that average person that I talk to is much more sane. Well, not as much as would be nice, but certainly not so bent on bombing and policing everything like Bush and the general media seem to be. The paranoia is being spread by from the top down, it certainly isn't grassroots. What bothers me is that so many people seem to just eat it up and don't pause to think about the reality of the situation for a minute.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
There is Japanese tale of 47 Samurai (http://www.jon-schmid.com/japan1/Sengakuji.htm) who dishonored themselves to avenge the death of their master. By drinking and whoring and partying they made the assassin (the neighboring warlord) believe they were no threat, and so they were able to walk right in and kill the guy. They, having avenged their master's death, had to kill themselves afterwards to undo the dishonor.. making them heroes... in a sense.
Could not a really devout terrorist do the same too? Ordering pork (its not like they need to actually eat it), appearing anything BUT a terrorist,so as to infiltrate these security methods and commit some act?
meh
The idiotic thing is that I very much doubt Al Quaida will ever again try to use an Airplane as a bomb, or even hijack one. Why? The customers won't sit still for it any more. There have been a number of cases since 9-11 where would-be hijackings etc. have been stopped by the PASSENGERS. The equation is changed. The bottom line is that all the airline security garbage is nothing but a feel-good measure that does little or nothing about the fundamental problem - which is that you've got a lot of medium crazy people who want to kill Americans.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Nothing has changed in the minds of our administrators and generals. They have always done this in the past. What has changed is that they need not apologize anymore. They can cut corners and costs. The information that they once had to collect covertly is now available on demand. So now that they demand information publicly, what new depths of covert intelligence is being collected? If this is what they get willingly, what are they taking under cover?
I see the fnords.
If you outlaw the law, only criminals will have laws
...does not necessarily imply "journalism".
As a number of folks have mentioned, the article notes nothing about requesting pork. To enlighten our slashdot editors such that they might device not to embellish future stories, let me explain why.
Yes, muslims do not eat pork. And yes, anyone who is sufficiently religious to consider it a good idea to die in a suicide bombing for one's faith is very likely to be sufficiently religious not to eat pork.
That said, nobody cares about pork. There's two reasons. The first is false positives. While it takes a pretty screwed up fanatic to be a suicide bomber, there are many people who actually do follow the peaceful teachings of Islam who aren't screwed up but don't eat pork. [0] Couple that with the fact that Jews also eat no pork, and there's a haystack of people who don't eat pork. A religious extremist mad suicide bomber type would be one hell of a hard needle to find.
The other reason is that religious extremist mad suicide bombers are misguided, not stupid. If somebody knows that porkless meals are a red flag, he's not going to order a porkless meal. When the stewardess shows up, he's simply going to say, "no, thank you. I'm not really hungry today" or he'll hand it to the fifteen year old kid in the next row. If you're planning on going to meet Allah tomorrow, well, he's not going to mind if you're a little hungry when you get there. Besides, I'd bet a guy like Allah's got a heavenly catering service.
Since it doesn't take a hell of a lot of thought to realize that pork's irrelevant, it really makes one's position look weak when one has to make stuff up to bolster it. While journalists have been slanted since journalism began, please do realize that your point is driven home much better when you simply present the facts, and don't feel a need to make them up.
[0] Yes, I know. "Aren't screwed up but don't eat pork." Yes. Even bacon. It sounds insane, doesn't it? But I assure....
mmmmmm.... bacon....
The problem in this case is not with the fact that one's meal preference is public, the problem is that the US government potentially uses it to subject people to extra hassles at airports. That's discrimination. And, in fact, my "reasonable expectation" is that if I type my meal preference into Expedia, the flight crew knows it, and the guy sitting next to me on the plane knows it; nobody else has any justification to correlate what I eat with who I am.
It may be costly, it may be time consuming, but the only way a society that wants to be free and open can do passenger screening is by applying non-discrimination uniformly. And, yes, this means more luggage screening. But the alternative in which some people are waved through security because they are of the appropriate racial, ethnic, and religious background, and others are subjected to interrogations will tear a society apart. Do that for a few years, and you will be creating terrorists at home as second class citizens become more and more resentful.
1) Should U.S. authorities make any attempt to identify potentially dangerous travellers before they enter the U.S.?
2) If so, should they check out every single person? If they are unable for some reason to check out every single person, how should they decide who to check out?
It seems to me that people want to bitch and complain about any attempt identify possible security problems before they occur. I'm curious if these are the same people who criticize the U.S. government for not stopping the 9/11 attacks which, just as a side note, were committed by men who probably would not have eating pork on the way over here.
I was going to leave it at that, but let me throw out an example of why this complaining pisses me off so much: suppose you administered a mail server and wanted to make sure that your machine was not used to send spam. You have noticed in the past a pattern in which accounts were opened with similar information and from a particular IP block, and then those accounts were used to send huge blocks of spam. If one day you see a few new accounts opened following this pattern, is it really that unreasonable to take a few simple steps to check and see if those people start sending spam? Maybe check the logs a few days later, or write a simple script that monitors their port 25 traffic? You haven't kicked them out, you haven't blocked their port; you really haven't done anything other than keep an eye out, based on a known pattern.
The bottom line is, this information is a STARTING POINT. No one is in trouble. No one is prevented from travelling. But you have to start somewhere. Unless, that is, you want to sit back, do nothing, and complain about everything done by those who are actually responsible.
Evil is the money of root.
Comments are due by Monday (Feb. 24) on the Department of Transportation's proposal for a "system of records" tracking massive amounts of information about every air traveler. The proposal is extremely broad and vague, and they are requesting exempt from the requirements of the Privacy Act -- so you would not be allowed to see information is stored about you, or challenge correct incorrect information. Comments must be mailed (not faxed or e-mailed), so get them out quickly to ensure they arrive by Monday.
PrivacyActivism (http://www.privacyactivism.org) has a page (http://www.privacyactivism.org/Items/63) with more information and a sample comment letter.