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JetBlue Gives Away Passenger Info To TSA?
Old Ben Franklin writes "In September of 2002, JetBlue Airways secretly gave the Transportation Security Administration the full travel records of 5 million JetBlue customers. This sensitive travel data was then turned-over to a private security contractor for analysis, the results of which were presented at a security conference earlier this year and the analysis then posted on the Internet." This comes after Wired News's recent article on this matter, explaining that "...the proposed government system to prevent terrorism by color-coding airline passengers according to their risk level will be tested using old passenger itineraries from JetBlue", but quoting a TSA spokesman as saying that "currently only fake passenger data was being used."
the proposed government system to prevent terrorism by color-coding airline passengers according to their risk level will be tested using old passenger itineraries from JetBlue
So is blue good or bad?
I flew them earlier this year. After already being on the plane 15 minutes at the gate a guy comes on board, calls my name, and escorts me off. Apparently they had marked me for the double-secret security scanning and failed to do it at the security checkpoint. No problems, really, and I was back on the plane about 10 minutes later in plenty of time for departure. Of course, my carry on bag was left in the overhead compartment the whole time I was off the plane.
It was the security folks who failed to do the extra scanning at the checkpoint, but it was Jet Blue's guy who got me off the plane. He didn't know and didn't care that I might have already snuck something onto the plane. If Jet Blue wants to help fight terror in the skies they'd better re-think their priorities. Paying lip-service to security is a long tradition in commercial aviation. Just think about this: if there was no law passed mandating crash-proof cockpit doors, most airlines wouldn't have put them in.
Typical - the first step probably seemed perfectly reasonable to JetBlue - I mean what could be safer than a Security Administration huh?
But then the records get given to a private firm and like Chinese Whispers, the privacy implications are completely forgotten.
I notice the exact same effect at work. I explain the ethical implications of not spamming to my boss. He then exlpains to clients that it's fine for them to send information to existing client lists. They then come and ask us to send mail to a list they have bought in from a 3rd party supplier!
I guess that problems like this are going to crop up more and more as we give up more and more of our personal data to large companies.
A little planning goes a long way...
I'm quite red-green color blind. Why the fucking hell must we use color codes for such *important* classifications.
Any system beyond ROY G. BIV confuses the hell out of me, and I can't tell the diffrence between RO and G 1/2 the time making this a major issue making a judgement regarding threats, and BIV 100% of the time. Given that about 10% of all males are also red-green colorblind (according to my psych book anyway), it seems nuts to adopt yet more color codes.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I don't know about this -- this seems a little specious to me.
I'm not saying that I don't beleive that it's impossible that JetBlue gave/sold their passenger list, but the article doesn't give any corroborating evidence other than the old "they deny it, it must be true." The file they linked to as a copy of data put up on the web also seems to be empty, so I couldn't look at what this data was. Regardless, how did they figure out that this was JetBlue's data? I'm also wondering if JetBlue even has had 5 million customers -- perhaps they meant 5 million transaction records?
I'm all for privacy, free speech, blah blah blah, but this seems pretty alarmist and reeks of, what's the term... conspiracy theory. This just doesn't add up.
Just my two cents, go ahead and flame me.
Actually the new coding system will have two labels:
1. Has No WMD's - safe passenger
2. Has No WMD's but with no evidence or any link whatsover to recent terrorism, we want you to think he has WMD's so lets haul him off the airplane for a near nuclear anal probing where we will find no WMD's and call in the UN to clean up after us when we can't handle the mess we made anymore. - safe Arab passenger
My father in law was branded as number 2 recently - with his tan from working in africa for months, they thought he was middle eastern, when he pulled his shirt open to expose his untanned white skin, the guards laughed at their 'mistake', stopped searching him and let him carry on.
Now if you Americans would stop pissing off people around the world, you wouldnt need all these colour schemes.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
As one of JetBlue's first passengers, when the seats were still new and the TV's weren't working yet, I'm upset by this. I flew them in the first weeks they were flying, and then frequently afterwards, because the planes were nice, the service was good, and the rates were cheap. Now I'm even more screwed than normal, I'm deep in the belly of the CAPPS II system. Bastards.
It was very nice of them to include the SS#, address, and date of birth. I recognize some of the addresses on pg 20 of the PDF, it would be almost trivial to find out the names to go with those, and use them in identity theft.
I wouldn't do it, but I might anonymously mail a printout of the pdf to them.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
"The United States has long pressured European airlines to submit passenger information in order to prevent the arrival of terrorists in the country."
"This information will include names, travel routes, credit card numbers, and possible special meals."
full article
Actually, I think the color Green is the root of all evil. But you're probably right.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
if you color code the passanger's in the traffic light way (green for "too stupid to be a terrorist"; yellow for "suspect" and red for "oh my god, he has a beard and even more, he wears a turban") and there is a suspected terrorist threat in a location of the u.s. will you deny the "red" passengers transportation? And how do you classyfy the color system? Would be interessting what happens when sombody say's there will be an attack on the white house and 5 planes with "red" passengers are on it's way to Washington DC. will they be rerouted to a save location (Nevada for instance, or maybe even Guantanamo)
".Sig Stealer" was here
If the idea is to test whether CAPPS II can accurately determine the risk level of a potential flyer, I don't see how they can accomplish this with data from old passengers. Don't they also need data on how much each of those passengers ended up BEING a RISK?
I don't know how you'd even begin to come up with such data. But if you can't figure out how much of a risk each passenger actually was, how can you see whether this correlates with the risk score CAPPS spits out? As far as I can see, this massive breach of passenger confidentiality will do nothing to test the efficacy of CAPPS.
(As far as I know, no terrorist acts have been committed on JetBlue, so all passengers who have flown on JetBlue should have been given the "Green" CAPPS rating. Hence once they feed this passenger data through CAPPS, it better spit out low risk for everybody. Otherwise, this profiling obviously isn't working.)
Ah yes. Thank goodness those clean cut, caucasian all American lads never go gun crazy.
All schemes like this increase the chance that evil people will target low risk travelers for identity theft.
Scenario: terrorists identify suitable target in fairly remote location. Break in, force target to purchase tickets over the internet, disclose PIN numbers to credit cards etc., kill target and catch plane. It takes a bit more organisation and time, but these people seem to have plenty of that. You can't even rely on those sneaky people to be darker shades of brown: the white English-speaking world has shown an ability to produce home-grown bombers, in the US, Northern Ireland and the UK.
If this is going to be a substitute for airport security (and I suspect it will be) all I can say is, fortunately I rarely need to travel by plane nowadays.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Can anyone tell me why they let known Airline Terrorists fly at all??
There is some interesting data-mining being done in the document. Correlating several databases together gives you a good profile of the people on the plane, but it doesn't give you an idea if someone is a terrorist. Like the presentation sais, Find a needle in a haystack, without knowing what the needle looks like If you don't know what it looks like you won't find it. What you do find is anamolous behaviour that points to interesting people to check.
Finding these people largely depends on how much they differ from the ordinary profile. Ordinary here is middle income suburbanite. So low income ghetto dwellers get singled out time and time again. Yes they might be out of the ordinary, but it doesn't mean that they will blow up the plane.
Use Adsense for Charity
Same thing happened to me at JFK. Ever since taking a one-way flight to Florida for a prolonged business trip, every flight I've been on I've been labeled "SSSS." I think it stands for Super Secret Squirrel Security.. I'm not sure. Anyway I get to cut the long lines at regular security so I don't care if they think I'm a terrorist.
The usual procedure is to stamp the ticket and punch a hole into the ticket to prove that the SSSS security check was made. After my very thorough SSSS check which involved unzipping my carry on and looking under one shirt, I got my ticket stamped but no hole. I'm about to board the plane when they say I can't get on because I only have the stamp.. not the hole.
Mind you, the hole IS A REGULAR CIRCULAR PUNCH HOLE CREATED BY A 1.99 STAPLES HOLE PUNCHER.
Of course I had to walk 900 feet back to the checkpoint, as this magical punchhole proved I was clean and not a terrorist. Kinda scary, no?
Also upon flying out of Burbank airport, flagged my usual terroristic SSSS, I asked which line is for SSSS security. To which the "guard" replied "Oh we don't do that here, just go through regular."
Now of course I know that I am no terrorist, but what about others who may be? When I told a close friend who is a pilot for United about that, he freaked out and said theyd be in huge trouble if the FAA ever found out.
Needless to say the whole airport security thing is a facade of false security, regulated by mystic punch holes, dimwitted workers, and innane flagged policies - He took a one-way flight!!! He's a terrorist lets do extra security on him for the next 30 flights!!" When of course anyone looking to cause trouble would just book round trip..
How To Fly Without ID. I wonder if this will still work... and if so for how much longer.
Ah, but you see someone getting searched. That's the point really. It looks like they're doing something. The Boy Scouts even think it's kinda cool and don't sue or nothin'.
It's kinda like the "Blue Line," where the cops don't go into the bad neighborhoods because that's where all the crime and dangerous people are, but they make sure they're well seen cruising the ritzy neighborhoods so the residents there feel "safe."
Granny gets a little annoyed when they take away her crochet hooks and so she starts sneaking plastic ones in inside her Suphose, but hey, that just proves she really is terrorist scum, doesn't it?
In the meantime most real terrorists could work around the system if they really wanted to. They always have. They always will. That's the one grim reality no one really wants to look in the eye.
And what do you do about the terrorist on a bicycle? Even the Israelis haven't been able to crack that conundrum with half a century of trying.
You could try to put a cop in everyone's pocket, but the recursive nature of that is somewhat daunting. Not to mention the fact that it wouldn't even work.
The world isn't a safe place.
Bummer, huh?
KFG
Anybody can have your passenger info if they really want it.
Foreign airlines flying to US destinations have had to turn over their passenger manifests, incl. credit-card details and special food requirements ("No pork means....") to US authorities for months now. If they don't do so they lose their landing-right, can get fined etc.
This isn't just for "scary/suspicious countries", but for all countries. Even those allied with the US.
This is the icing on the cake, it's kinda late so I guess that's my excuse for forgetting to type it..
While leaving Burbank my "friend" had purchased a kitchen utensil set. Upon packing the luggage my "friend" looked at the 8 inch chef knife and said.. "Damn I'm gonna have to ship this back or give it away cause there's no shot in hell this is getting let on the plane in my carry-on." His brother says Ah give it a shot, if its a no-go let security confiscate it.
Needless to say, my "friend's" bag went through the X-Ray machine, and the attendant didn't even give it a glance. Remember he is flagged for extra security.. regardless of the 8 inch knife on the X-Ray, the bag has to be checked by FAA policy!!! His bag was never opened and he boarded the plane and landed with the obvious contraband aboard. But I dare the 90 year old woman to try to board with a nail clipper.
So not only was he flagged as a security risk, but he sucessfully boarded the plane with an 8 inch chef knife without anyone giving him a second glance! Of course he had no mal-intents but the whole incident shocked my pilot friend and he was furious as it showed how really terrible airport security is, and how easy a terrorist can smuggle stuff in if a regular passenger (who was flagged a terrorist!!) can get by without trying to circumvent any security.
Timothy McVeigh didnt park the truckload of explosives in front of a school, he blew up a government building, and if i recall his attack was just as horrible as the pentagon attack.
.. and before you answer think about the americans caught in Iraq recently who were helping Iraqi's fight against the american occupation.
show me how racial profiling will stop that from happening again
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
You must be crazy to think that searching everyone doesn't "make us secure". Do you even know how much crap is confiscated from passengers during searches? My friend works for the TSA and they've confiscated, among other things, switch blades/knives, drugs (LOTS of it, and not just pot either), guns, etc... And almost all of the time these items are taken from white/american citizens.
Now imagine what would happen if that gun wasn't confiscated, got on the plane, and some nutcase decided to start firing at people for whatever reason.
Being "secure" means being certain that there are no holes in the screening process, even if it inconveniences you.
Top secret fact! CAPPS is actually only based on whether you have any medical history of any kind.
The data includes your SSN and dates of service for medical conditions and general location. Thats it.
All this fluff that is being studied by the document the contractor did is not what the FBI uses.
Basically... you need to create a fake limited medical history in the major databases sold by blue cross and others for favors to the gov.
If you have a valid passport and credit card adn back acct but absolutely no medical history tied to your SSN then you are flagged for SSSS sec line treatment.
Its that goddamned simple.
MEDICAL HISTORY this limited 5 million record jetblue database is nothing but the tip of the iceberg.
The us thought of everything but the only thing that works best is medical histories. Any history at all is "clean" and no history is suspect.
BTW : the 19 saudi nationals had no us insurance based medical histories... but then again they had other signifying traits that were indicative of being a foreigner.
I wonder why no one gets the mediacl history angle.
its 90% of the weight of CAPS II profle.
You Idiot, they don't check everyone to be politically correct, they do it because its smart. Exactly how hard do you think it would be for a worldwide terrorist organization with millions of dollars in backing to make some fake ID papers for some nut job suicider that claim he's a southern Italian named Vito Petrolli, just get him to wear a cross and carry a pocket Bible and in your model of security he just bypasses any rigerous search. People of Arabic decent don't have 100% genuine Arab stamped on their heads so don't assume you could automatically tell an Arab Muslem apart from a Mexcan, Italian, or Indian.
My eyes never roll back as far as they do when I hear about somebody complaining about "racial profiling". Apparently, these people forgot that all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were young, middle-eastern men, so that's who they should be looking at the closest (aaaand duh).
First of all, the Oklahoma City bombers were all white Americans. The Unabomber was a white American. Clearly, not all terrorists are "young, middle-eastern men". The sooner you get out of that mindset the better.
Using September 11th as an excuse to treat people with darker skin or of middle-eastern origin differently to everyone else is the slippery slope. What next, make them travel on seperate planes? (And, lest we forget, there was plenty of "get that Arab off the plane before you get us off the ground" hysteria amongst a lot of American passengers in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.)
Seperate planes first, seperate neighbourhoods next. Why not just round them all up and put them all in a ghetto now?
What you fail to realise, living with your head in the sand, is that by treating people differently just because of what they look like, where they come from or what faith they follow you rather are doing exactly what Osama bin Laden and other religous fundamentalists (Islamic and Christian) want you to do.
Al Qaeda's main objective on 9/11 wasn't to kill a few thousand people or to blow up some buildings, it's main objective was to promote conflict between Islamic cutures and western ones. The sooner you absorb that information the better.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
You are ignorant. I'm not being rude, I'm being honest. Profiling is less secure then random sampling. It's mathematical FACT.
The reason it is less secure is because it's hackable. By that I mean, if you can reverse engineer the algorithm they use to determine who is to be searched, you can break it. All you would have to do is go a few hours early for your next flight with a pen a paper and sit in front of the gate. As you sit there you tally who gets searched (what do they look like, what are they wearing, etc.) and who doesn't. Do that for a month and you now have all the data you need to find the "perfect" terrorist.
For example, if you see that white teenage girls almost never get searched, then your next recruit will be a naive white girl you meet at a sorority mixer. She'll bring in the weapons for you and boom, you have your next terrorist attack, and it's much less probable that you'll get caught.
A random sample, even despite the 12 year olds and grandmothers, is inherantly more secure becuase you can't find a way to guarantee that you won't be searched with the right racial candidate. It is impossible to reverse engineer.
You have the actual label on your boarding pass effectively saying that you are suspect? Ubelievably cynical! Even in late Soviet Uinon, where I happened to live good part of my life, authorities avoided to humiliate the citizens so openly. (And mind you, USSR wasn't exactly the place where personal freedoms were flourhising).
I sympathise you, and wish you best of luck. Hopefully your country will recover the freedoms and sanity that its dwellers were so proud of.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
Red is the colour of blood and, since the time of cavemen, has been the accepted colour for danger.
Green is the colour of most safe to eat plant-life (most ripe vegetation is green, dead vegetation tends to go black, etc), hence it's the natural choice to indicate safety.
Look around you everywhere, this red/green usage is almost universal. Traffic signs, emergency vehicles, motor sports, etc.
"Nuts to adopt yet more color codes"? I don't think so - red = bad and green = good is something that even small kids can understand. Why would you want to get away from the simplicity of that?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
And, your dupe doesn't even really have to aware that he/she is involved in a terrorist act. The real red-flag guy can walk on the plane with no bags whatsoever to search, and just grab the real goods out of the dupe's bags (secretly stashed in the handle of the bag she "won" along with her free trip to Hawaii from the "radio station" last week (pre set up, of course) when he/she goes to the rest-room.
So if I have a record of flying to "rouge" states every now and then, plus I don't eat pork I'm guessing I get the "red" or whatever color means I'll get a plastic fork whereas John next to me gets the tiny metal fork (both which are still inferior to a shoelace for hijacking a plane).
But this kind of information is already used when you shop with creditcards, everytime you get a directed ad because you ordered something in the past etc etc. In my opinion, using some real data (e.g. travel history) in the security is better than the system of harassing people for looking foreign or whatever. Just don't supply more personal information than you need when flying and your privacy should be ok.
Also, if you are a terrorist, wouldn't you fly with a brand spanking new identity every time? Perhaps the color code to start with should be the most dangerous, and frequent flyers should earn their green code with their frequent flyer miles? Only after a couple of flights could you expect anything less than a full cavity search? =)
Glad this forum has an AC feature.
Prior to 9/11/2001, a large majority of UAE and Saudi students studying at Wazzu (Pullman, WA) were called back to their home countries by their parents. I only have knowledge of WSU, but I don't imagine that this is the only university that this occurred at.
These students are mainly from the ruling families in those countries, their parents are emirs, sheiks and the like. That they all somehow got called back at the same time is simply no coincidence. If these families were made aware of these upcoming attacks through an intelligence network, it appears that the U.S. intelligence network is not quite up to the level that it should be. If these families were made aware of the attacks through personal sources, the U.S. government must find out what connection these families have with the terrorist networks.
> BTW : the 19 saudi nationals had no us insurance based medical histories... but then again they had other signifying traits that were indicative of being a foreigner.
Yeah, they were carrying Saudi passports.
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Using past data to predict future events has always been a tricky situation, but the more dangerous trap is beleiving that if your model works with a set of past-data, that it is good. An excellent comparison is the stock market and people who try to predict it - sure, you can do a super-duper model that fits well with the data that fed it, but it ultimately fails when handed new data. If it worked, there would be a whole lot of very rich people out there.
Stock market modeling seems like it would be much easier: you've got daily data on every single company going back 100 years, plus a whole lot more detailed financial information than you could ever get out of passengers (what's your book-to-bill ratio?). To top it off, performance can be measured in one absolute indisputable figure - profit - that is an attribute of most companies, whereas security has a fuzzy performance measurement(*) and few examples of what officials are looking for.
Another thing that concerns me is that, AFAIK, the jet blue travel database contains precisely zero hijackings, so it seems to me that -- according to any possible model that could be generated -- the old system worked perfectly and could not be improved. Nail-clipper weilding maniacs, sure - plenty of those, but no actual hijackers.
(* Pop quiz. Who killed more people, 9/11 or the airline "security" procedures that followed? If you added the expected life expencties of the people who died that day and got an hour number, that number is on the same order of magnatude of the extra time wasted in airports every year)
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I recently took a flight the other day and the passenger before me with his laptop only had to open the bag and show it to him. They however made me take off my shoes, open my case and take my laptop out and used a pair of forceips to wipe some sort of cloth around my laptop. Even over the screen which I was none too happy with.
Who's to say that they have not already started testing this system on actual travelers.
Also international travelers will not have any sort of credit profile so WHY do they have to include OURS as part of the system. It makes me sick how it's acceptible to discriminate on people becuase of poor credit.
As an example I have a score right above 650 but am currently a State Farm customer for my Truck's insurance. I decided to shop around to see if there were alternatives that were cheaper.
Geico and Progressive both quoted double my current premiums. When I asked a manager of the similarities at Progressive he responded both companies set your rates based in part on your credit profile. I asked what difference does it make on my driving and he said people with poor credit tend to drive worse.
I'd say that's bull since I know people that are well off and they drive like a bat out of hell. I had though that by being a responsible driver I would be rewarded but that's obviously not the case.
The point here is that credit ratings have nothing to do with how dangerous people are. I would question the Unibomber's credit rating if he had one at that time and what it really was.
I'm also sure that Tim McVeigh had good credit also.
If you thought misleading or incorrect credit information was hard to change, just wait until the credit people and insurance people get ahold of our "security color coding information" and start using it to alter^H^H^H^H^Hjack up our rates.
There's already been a flap in Minnesota about insurance companies using credit scores to influence auto insurance; they claim a correlation, which is probably there, but someone wisely called "bullshit" and took them to task for using criteria other than someone's actual driving record.
Further ironies abound, since those of us who don't carry a lot of debt and pay of our credit early get reduced credit scores -- and I thought responsibility was rewarded! (Yes, I'm aware that those of us that pay off early fubar the economic plans and machinations of the credit industry, since they plan to make all that interest income off of me).
But just wait until you apply for a loan and find out your interest rate is sky high or your insurance has gone through the roof because you're mistakenly labeled a "security threat". I've already read plenty of horror stories about people that couldn't fly and who spent months fighting the national insecurity apparatus trying to understand why they were considered risks and getting it changed.
I used to think that the foil hat crowd was a little off the deep end with most of their complaints about the collection of information, but now I'm starting to agree -- its gone too far, there are no controls, and its clear that Bu$h and A$hcroft have no compunction about giving this information away to their corporate allies.
Quoting:
JetBlue Airways confirmed on Thursday that in September 2002, it provided 5 million passenger itineraries to a defense contractor for proof-of-concept testing of a Pentagon project unrelated to airline security -- with help from the Transportation Security Administration.
The contractor, Torch Concepts, then augmented that data with Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information, including income level, to develop what looks to be a study of whether passenger-profiling systems such as CAPPS II are feasible.
Note that JetBlue has a privacy policy on their website that includes this statement:
The financial and personal information collected on this site is not shared with any third parties, and is protected by secure servers.
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
Because most suicide bombers in Palestine/Israel fit the profile you mentioned, in order to bypass Israeli security, terrorists groups started recruiting women. It worked like a charm.
Furthermore, the terrorists in said area also started to use disguises, so that they look like a Jew or a member of the Israeli military.
Again, more real world examples of profiles failing. Profiles hurt the innocent and open up security holes for the bad people to get through.
The real solution is to improve our foreign policy so that people around the world aren't so eager to attack us. It doesn't take much effort to study up a bit on USA foreign policy in the Middle East for the past 100 years. The USA has done bad stuff in Iran, Iraq, Afganistan, Palestine, etc... many years before 911.
The USA continues to do bad stuff in said places... hence people want to attack the USA. Racial and ethnic profiling will only worsen the problem. The solution is found in a better foreign policy.
Maybe, it's time for an alternative?
= 9J =
When I see a bunch of Southern Baptists hijacking multiple airplanes and smashing them into downtown Riyadh or Mecca or whatever, you MIGHT have something to talk about.
So, you didn't see them hijacking your rights with inane laws regarding drugs and sexuality? It doesn't take a bomb to do terrible damage to the freedom of a nation.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
You are either the biggest fucking dumbass ever or a troll. Mathematical fact??? Where's your data?
Learn to use the internet.
And I know soriety girls are braindead, but I think they would know if a fucking arab was using them as a mule for explosives.
1) You could get someone who looks like the "good" profile, even if they are just acting.
2) You could get a real person who doesn't even have to know that they are carrying anything.
Let me try to clue you in on a little thing we like to call "reality", big guy. Profiling does not mean that the gaurds will only stop dirty, turbin-wearing foreigners. Profiling means that the airport security has enough sense not to strip-search children and grandmothers just because some "random" sampling rule tells them to. Profiling means you fucking stop anyone that looks suspicious. It's common fucking sense, not an act of racism.
You only have a limited amount of resources at an airport terminal. The guard can't search everyone, right? If the guard is searching only "suspiscious" looking people, then it's trivial to get past him.
For example, if the guard only has time to search 10 people every flight, then you get 10 of your terrorist friends to dress up in super-suspiscous clothes, but carry NOTHING dangerous. Then you get your one white terrorist friend to dress in a business suit and carry a suitcase full of x-ray transparent machine guns.
The guard, who is profiling, will choose the 10 suspiscous looking people, and the non-suspiscous person will get in with ease.
OK, I wrote a letter to David Neeleman and recieved this in response. I thought it was a nice gesture, and personally I like JetBlue. Every airline has its weakness' - most don't make a big fuck up like this though.
CUT CUT CUT
Thank you for writing to me so that I have an opportunity to apologize
to you personally and set the record straight.
Most importantly, JetBlue has never supplied, nor will supply, customer
information to the Transportation Security Administration, or any
government agency, unless we are required to do so by law -- not for
CAPPS II or for any other purposes, whatsoever.
However, I regret that, more than a year ago, we responded to an
exceptional request from the Department of Defense to assist their
contractor, Torch Concepts, with a project regarding military base
security. This project had no connection with aviation security or the
CAPPS II program and no data files were ever shared with the Department
of Defense or any other government agency or contractor.
We provided limited historical customer data including names, addresses
and phone numbers. It DID NOT include personal financial information,
credit card information, or social security numbers.
Torch further developed this information into a presentation, without
JetBlue's knowledge, for a Department of Homeland Security symposium.
We regret that this presentation included the personal information of
one customer -- although the customer's name was not used. Again, we
had no knowledge of this presentation until two days ago and we were
deeply dismayed to learn of it.
The sole set of data in Torch's possession has been destroyed; no
government agency ever had access to it. With Torch's help, we are
continuing to make every effort to have the Torch presentation with the
one customer's information removed from the internet.
This was a mistake on our part and I know you and many of our customers
feel betrayed by it. We deeply regret that this happened and have taken
steps to fix the situation and make sure that it never happens again.
I am saddened that we have shaken your faith in JetBlue but I assure you
personally that we are committed to making this right.
Sincerely,
David Neeleman
Chief Executive Officer