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Northwest Gives Personal Data to NASA
Tree writes "Following four months on the heels of JetBlue's confession that they released passenger data to the Feds against their stated privacy guidelines, the Washington Post is reporting that Northwest has now admitted that they've done the same thing during a time period when they said they weren't. Nice. They were once my favorite airline."
I was sure the submitter meant the NSA but looking at the story it really was NASA.
Are they going to be sharing this info with the Martian Immigration Service?
Like my parents used to say... "It's not that we're so angry that you did [insert bad thing here], it's that you lied to us about it.
circa75.com
We're sending you to Mars because of your ties to terrorist groups. Nothing personal, you understand, right?
We do not live in a police state. The Government trusts us. Donald Rumsfeld is infallable. All hail Bush.
So what will you when every toll road you travel on by car passes your travel details automatically to law enforcement based on your license plate? Or when one day every intersection has a camera collecting this kind of information? Or when there's a camera doing face recognition on every street corner, evaluating whether you are a terrorist or not? Will you just stay at home all day? I think a more proactive stance is needed here. Getting the general public to understand the privacy implications of these systems so they stop voting for people that put them in place is probably a lot more effective.
They were your favorite airline? You obviously don't live in Detroit. Here, we call them Northworst, and it really doesn't surprise me. This is after they've used taxpayer money to build an addition to our airport that they're now calling the "Northwest World Gateway," totally ignoring its actual name.
Then it should be easy to boycott and avoid them.
If Jetblue jumped off a bridge, would you?
~To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. -Yann Martel
With airlines not doing so well these days, I don't think it's a very good idea for them to piss their customers off...
Of course, even if they lose 30% of their customers, the government will subsidize them for that 30%. Ahh...the wonders of...capitalism?
from an aticle on the same topic at nytimes.com:
"We do not provide that type of information to anyone," Kurt Ebenhoch, a spokesman for Northwest, told The New York Times in a story published on Sept. 23.
On a separate point, remember that an airline that is pressed by the Government to violate its passengers' privacy is likely in an impossible position: "turn over your passenger records, or we have the security people strip-search all your passengers at the gate and we start safety inspections on every one of your planes 5 minutes before departure. You'll never have a customer again."
I don't mean to excure them, but I do think it's worth wondering aloud whether they got some not-so-subtle hints that the didn't need to mention this to the public.
They were once my favorite airline.
With all the paranoid hoops the feds make travelers jump through to board an aircraft, I must admit my favorite airline is Amtrack these days, for shorter journeys.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I'd bet that nearly all of the of the major Airlines have done this. Northwest and JetBlue just happened to get caught...
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Northwest Airlines provided information on millions of passengers for a secret U.S. government air-security project soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, raising more concerns among some privacy advocates about the airlines' use of confidential customer data.
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The nation's fourth-largest airline asserted in September that it "did not provide that type of information to anyone." But Northwest acknowledged Friday that by that time, it had already turned over three months of reservation data to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center. Northwest is the second carrier to have been identified as secretly passing travelers' records to the government.
The airline industry has said publicly that it would not cooperate in developing a government passenger-screening program because of concerns that the project would infringe on customer privacy. But the participation of two airlines in separate programs demonstrates the industry's clandestine role in government security initiatives.
In September, JetBlue Airways said that it turned over passenger records to a defense contractor and apologized to its customers for doing so.
Northwest said in a statement Friday that it participated in the NASA program after the terrorist attacks to assist the government's search for technology to improve aviation security. "Northwest Airlines had a duty and an obligation to cooperate with the federal government for national security reasons," the airline said.
Records included personal information
The carrier declined to say how many passengers' records were shared with NASA from the period offered, October to December 2001. More than 10.9 million passengers traveled on Northwest flights during that time, according to the Transportation Department.
NASA documents show that NASA kept Northwest's passenger name records until September 2003. Such records typically include credit card numbers, addresses and telephone numbers.
NASA said it used the information to investigate whether "data mining" of the records could improve assessments of threats posed by passengers, according to the agency's written responses to questions. At the time the agency also was exploring other possible projects aimed at improving air security, it said. NASA said no other airlines were involved in the project and that it did not share its data with other parties. The agency said it did not pay for the data.
Northwest said it did not inform any passengers that it shared data with NASA. It also said it did not believe that the data sharing violated its privacy policy.
"Our privacy policy commits Northwest not to sell passenger information to third parties for marketing purposes," the company said in its statement Friday . "This situation was entirely different, as we were providing the data to a government agency to conduct scientific research related to aviation security and we were confident that the privacy of passenger information would be maintained."
The carrier tells passengers visiting its Web site that "when you reserve or purchase travel services through Northwest Airlines nwa.com Reservations, we provide only the relevant information required by the car rental agency, hotel, or other involved third party to ensure the successful fulfillment of your travel arrangements."
Earlier admission
The disclosure of Northwest's participation in the NASA project comes just four months after JetBlue's admission of involvement in a secret security project conducted by the Defense Department. JetBlue conceded that it violated its privacy policy when it turned over records on 1.1 million passengers. JetBlue is being sued by passengers in class-action lawsuits.
The Northwest and NASA documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit organization that advocates privacy rights and open government. The organization, which provided the docum
That way, people don't have to be worried about "loopholes" in privacy policies such as the one indicated in a NYT article on the same subject:
The company said in a statement: "Our privacy policy commits Northwest not to sell passenger information to third parties for marketing purposes. This situation was entirely different, as we were providing the data to a government agency to conduct specific scientific research related to aviation security and we were confident that the privacy of passenger information would be maintained."
According to for example Norwegian law, this transfer would be unlawful unless the data subjects consented to the transfer.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
An article in the following day's St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press said: "Northwest Airlines will not share customer information, as JetBlue Airways has, Northwest chief executive Richard Anderson said Tuesday in brief remarks after addressing the St. Paul Rotary."
Somebody should ask Dick Anderson, what exactly did he mean by his statement? If that is not a bald-faced lie, then I don't know what is.
I hope the shareholders hold this guy accountable.
As the former owner of a Nortwest Frequent Flyer card (which I just cut up on reading this story), I'd just like to say "sayonara!" to Northwest. It was not the sharing of the data that was bad; it was lying about it and the "cross my heart, swear to God we don't do that" that pissed me off.
I can understand the need for exploring new security options. How hard would it have been to anonymize the data? Just run it through a one-way hash function, and you can provide the data without invading anyone's privacy.
This ineptitude and lying really irritates me.
Why would NASA want information on airlines' passengers? I can understand the Government, in general would, but NASA? NASA does space exploration, not national defense. What gives?
They "misplaced" one of their super intelligent space monkeys and are covertly trying to find where he fled to without alerting the unsespecting authorities.
Recent reports of fluctuating banana prices only spurred their resolve. Bonkers MUST be found before he mates!
You can't take the sky from me...
I had a flight last week on Delta (not my favorite airline either) but when I showed up to the airport and had problems with Delta's (we don't want to talk to you so we make you deal with a machine) self-check in kiosk I found out that I was actually flying on Northwest. Huh? Apparantly even though I booked Delta, they codeshare with Northwest. I wonder if my passenger information is now in Northwest's database.
Really, the FBI can come over and arrest me, the NSA can deploy a task force in the North Sea standing by to obliberate most of Northern-Europe and the CIA can drug my beer but not the NASA! Dear Eris, they might decide to drop that Saturn V on my house, do you have any idea how much that blasted things weighs?
Hate me!
(disclaimer: satire)
-Flakbait
Temporary Minister of Propoganda for the Assyrian Empire
I was wondering why the US Air lady asked me if I thought the moon landings had been faked when I checked in. I hope I answered correctly.
It was MLB. Now they know my squalor index.
I hide the fact that I have nothing to hide. Never show your cards.
hate titty pee colon slash slash
everybody has something to hide.
If you don't agree, please post all you credit card numbers, with expiration dates, checking account number, with routing information, all logon and passwords to any thing you have. If you have nay children, please post there names birthdate, secret words, and schedules. Please post you employeer, employee number, annual salary/income.
Also please put a web cam in every room of your house so we can watch whatever you do. Be sure to post your drivers liscense information, all ID numbers.
So, you still got nothing to hide?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Pure, and simple lying.
They lied.
Their sorry excuse ?
It sounds just like what Adobe was saying when they got busted for the Currency Detection Algorithms that they had added as (semi) spyware. And then of course we find out that many other Graphics Programs Vendors had done the same ...
Their sorry excuse ?
Really makes you wonder how many of these Corporations are already in-bed-with-the-feds ...
Is it already 1985 ?
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
I have to admit - that right after 9/11, if NASA asked for a passenger list - I'd would have probably given it to them as fast as possible.
The trouble comes, though, is when a passanger asked me: "Did you share my data with anybody?"
I *would* have told them "Yeah... NASA got a copy. Got a problem with that?"
Airplanse travel over provate and public property - there should be no expecation of pricacy. When a 747 flies over my house - I expect the governemnt to protect me by making sure that some fundelementalist asshole isen't about to crash the plaine into my house.
So what if NASA got a copy of the files ? - it's the hining that's desturbing.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/01/17/Tampabay/Snippy
I was sure the submitter meant the NSA but looking at the story it really was NASA.
Are they going to be sharing this info with the Martian Immigration Service?
NASA is the National AERONAUTICS and Space Admin. The space program gets all the press. But they do a LOT of work on all aspects of commercial air flight.
And while their work on cutting edge aircraft design (civilian, military, and research platforms) gets most of the press on their airflight side, they're involved in a lot of other stuff: Flight simulation, air traffic control, baggage searching devices...
And, as you can now see, stealth people-tracking databases for the "war on terror".
I'd suggest you contact your legislator if you object. But that might get me a heavy fine. (Follow this link {cloned from my current signature} to see what I'm talking about.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"To the Moon, al-Hassan! To the Moon!"
> They were once my favorite airline
Let me guess, you don't live near Detroit nor the Twin Cities.
Ads are broken.
And the government, and the people within it, have never misused their powers or information that has been provided to them.
Nixon jumps out at me, for some reason here.
Now, this info is on 5 CDs. How can *anyone* believe that it stayed on those CDs, and din't make the rounds from FBI to NSA to CIA to DHS to whatever other 3 letter acroymn that is supposed to 'protect us'?
That information is everywhere you don't want it to be - and you won't know what they're doing with it until it bites you in the ass.
I guarantee that this will be abused - everything else has, why would this be anything different.
I wonder if good ol' boy George would be allowed to fly if the CAPPS2 system had access to his military AWOL status, his DUI, his credit scores, and his drug abuse.
Oh, wait. Invasive and ineffective programs like these are only for the 'commoners'.
If you're going to be snippy about it, maybe you should read the article.
---
NASA documents show that NASA kept Northwest's passenger name records until September 2003.
Such records typically include credit card numbers, addresses and telephone numbers. NASA said it used the information to investigate whether "data mining" of the records could improve assessments of threats posed by passengers, according to the agency's written responses to questions.
---
Notice the part where they mention credit card umbers, addresses, and telephone numbers.
Notice, also, the implicit part in the way we *should* be dealing with rights management where the question is not whether or not I have a good enough reason to hide something, but whether or not the government has a good enough reason to requisition it. In other words, I'm not James Bond, but I don't fucking care -- because I'm not ObL either, and the government doesn't get to just willy-nilly grab my flight information. More importantly, Northwest doesn't get to willy-nilly hand them over because "it seemed like a good idea at the time."
If you can't figure out why that is so, then you really haven't been paying attention. Airline travel is not a right, and you don't have to fly if you don't like the fact that people are working to make sure some guy isn't trying to hijack passengers or bomb the plane you're on.
I'd really like to see you make a scene at the metal detector and baggage scanner and scream about 'police state!' there and see how far that gets you.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
In Canada, the airlines would be liable for damages from every customer for this (assuming there was no regulation requiring them to share the information).
IANAL
PIPEDA
You know, when someone does this is always slightly ticks me off. I don't have anything to hide either, yet you won't be getting my personal information because it is... Yes, PERSONAL. It's something that YOU as an outsider got nothing to to with. If you want it, you can go to some nasty place with brimstone and fire. My personal information simply isn't any of your concern.
Then again, by law I am supposed to carry around and ID at all times. Fair enough. So a police officer walks up to me and asks me for my ID. Then I will show it to him/her because, as a police officer enforcing the law in the country where I currently reside, I am obliged to do so. I might not be happy about it but hey, it's the law and I don't have anything to hide.
That isn't called "having something to hide", it's called "having something that isn't any of your damned concern". Go bother yourself with something that IS your concern.
Hate me!
Surely in order for this to work NASA would have to know who on the list was a terrorist and who wasn't. It's like giving somebody a list of people's age and weight (and no other information) and asking them to figure out a system for knowing if they voted republican or not, it's just impossible to do without knowing voting trends for those weights and ages.
The only way I could see this being used is to look at who gets drunk and causes problems on flights (I assume that airlines keep information on this) and place extra staff on flights with a high number of these types of people and while that's not a bad idea it's hardly "a matter of national security"
In Soviet Russia Slashdot cliches use you
Osama Bin Laden: How the U.S. Helped Midwife a Terrorist.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
DUI
Cocaine (from a right wing puplication!)
I'm sure you can find more sources if you look, I just went as fast I could, and tried to pick sources that are generally trusted to be accurate.
There will always be those who say 'if the records aren't there, how can it be true?', but when you are in charge of who keeps them, where they are kept, and who has access to them, you can certainly manipulate them.
Does the head IT guy at a company ever get busted for looking at porn?...
Yet one more reason I will never fly on their airline. Those "Body Nazis" were the first to ban smoking on international flights. That's when they lost me as a customer, permanently.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
First, this was before there were any U.S. restrictions on smoking other than at takeoff/landing time, so it was before all this
"politcally correct" bullshit was in place.
Second, If you'll recall, the planes had their designated smoking areas (called "the smoking section" back then) in the rear of the plane. There is a cabin airflow system in the plane, and I'll guarantee you it works from front to back, not the other way around. Those sitting in front had no problems with the smoke from the rear.
If things had progressed differently, the airlines probably would have been able to make a simple partition to ensure no smoke "leakage" occurred, but it was much cheaper and easier just to ban it entirely. Once again many had to suffer due to a vocal few. By now things have changed and the minority is now the majority, so it goes.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
If the government/police want information on my habits, they better damn well be using it in connection with a real investigation on me, with specific charges. And this information had better damn well benn obtained via court order.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Ah, perhaps I now understand the purpose of Bush's proposed increase in funding for NASA.
One that is true, however "An Evil Leader is typically not elected by a majority of the voters", happens to apply also to Bill Clinton, who did NOT get a majority in either of his elections.
Actually, he did, unless by "NOT get a majority" you really meant "NOT NOT get a majority".
Clinton won the majority during BOTH the 1992 and 1996 elections, in both the popular election and electoral colleges. Let's review:
During the 1992 election, Clinton received 43% of the popular votes, and 68.8% of the electoral college. Bush lost because he received less votes then Clinton, 37.45% of the total, and 31.2% electoral college. Clinton won the majority.
In 1996, Clinton received 49.24% of the popular votes, and 70.4% of the electoral system. Dole received 40.71% of the popular votes, and 29.6% in the electoral college. Again, Clinton won the majority.
By all counts, Clinton won the majority vote in both elections.
Let's compare that to the 2000 election, where Gore received a 48.38% majority of the popular vote, but only 49.4% of the electoral college. Bush lost the popular election, with a 47.87% minority, but he won in the electoral college with 50.4% of the electoral college.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
OK, not nearly as fast or convenient as air travel, but I don't feel the heavy hand of "homeland security" when I take Amtrack. It's such a pleasant, relaxing way of travel and although it's statistically safer, you have the distinct advantage of already being on the ground in the event of a calamity. Although I'm by no means advocating this, CCW holders can probably carry without anyone ever knowing.
Well, yes, and quite a few of us have also learned that it runs much deeper than just a simple decision made by the current president.
There's a REAL good chance that no matter who becomes president, this sort of thing will continue. The leaders of govt. organizations (you know, the typical 3 letter bureaus like the FBI, CIA, IRS, NSA, ATF) want more tools at their disposal to do their jobs -- "privacy" be dammed.
The president simply can't wave his hand or sign a piece of paper and make all of this go away. All of those groups serve useful purposes and nobody's likely to just abolish them completely while in their term of office.
While it IS true that the lines are quite blurred between "Democrat" and "Republican" nowdays - it's simple-minded thinking to blame these "big brother" issues squarely on the president, no matter what their supposed allegiance is politically. You've got all those senators and congressmen getting paid off/bribed to vote one way or the other, and legislation being written with sneaky, unrelated legal changes constantly trying to be snuck through. You've got huge power struggles between governmental agencies, and lots of "behind the scenes" bargaining for the "lesser of two evils" that the general public never sees when we ask "Why the h*ll did the president just sign THAT into law??"
All we can really do is speak out loudly and often when we see these injustices happen - so they can't just start running everything right past us.
During the 1992 election, Clinton received 43% of the popular votes, and . . . Clinton won the majority.
methinks the parent doesn't know the difference between "majority" and "plurality."
What did you like best about flying Northwest? The chronic tardiness or the spate of drunken pilots flying to an incorrect airport?
It sounds like such a law could be useful for you Americans right now..
Amtrak Sharing Rider Information, Profit from Seizures, with DEA
Amtrak is providing the DEA with ticketing information about passengers in an effort to stem the flow of illegal drugs. DEA agents have direct access to an Amtrak computer that contains information on passenger names, origination points, destinations, and payment information. In exchange for access to the database, Amtrak receives 10% of whatever seizures the DEA makes using the information.
- Amtrak Helps DEA Hunt Drug Couriers, Albuquerque Journal, April 11, 2001. (Ed.: link broken)
- Amtrak shares passenger info with DEA for drug prosecutions, Declan
- Your Rights Online: Keeping DEA In The Loop About Amtrak Travelers, Slashdot, April 15, 2001.
- Amtrak 'Sharing' Information With D.E.A., New York Times, April 15, 2001 (registration required).
So, the airlines aren't the only ones turning over passenger data to the government; Amtrak has been doing it even before 9/11. Their willingness to give up information for cash in the past leads me to believe they will likely do so in the future. And where does a huge chunk of their cash come from? The federal government (about $1 billion last year).McCullagh's politechbot.com, April 11, 2001.
You might think that Amtrak could be tempted to give up a lot of passenger data in return for $1 billion. Well, what if the feds doubled that? Senator Olympia Snowe (R) wants to raise Amtrak's funding to $2 billion a year over the next six years, with an additional $48 billion for maintenance and new construction. It's probably just coincidence that Snowe introduced a bill (S. 1599) pushing for "the Secretary of Homeland Security to conduct a study of the feasibility of implementing a program for the full screening of passengers, baggage, and cargo on Amtrak trains, and for other purposes." The best part is section 1.b, which says:
PILOT PROGRAM- As part of the study under subsection (a), the Secretary shall conduct a pilot program of random security screening of passengers and baggage at 5 of the 10 busiest passenger rail stations served by Amtrak (measured by the average number of boardings of Amtrak passenger trains) and at up to five additional rail stations served by Amtrak that are selected by the Secretary. In selecting the additional train stations the Secretary shall attempt to achieve a distribution of participating stations in terms of geographic location and size.
I feel safer already!
Majority means more than half, not just the largest slice. Neither 43% nor 49.24% qualify, so by my count Clinton did not get the majority of the popular vote in either election.
While this is offensive in many ways, anyone who thinks their private data are safe from Big Brother needs to stop flying, taking the bus, driving, and go into their basement and lock the doors.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Note that I said "protections", not "rights". It's an important distinction.
Perhaps ironically, the right to vote is probably the least important right a corporation can be given, since a corporation's one vote cannot stand against the votes of the individuals that work for it. It's probably the only right a corporation does not have that an individual does, and that is probably only because having it would not make any real difference.
Note that I said "protections", not "rights". It's an important distinction.
In any case, it's most certainly not true that if you take away the rights of a corporation, then you must also be taking away the rights of the individuals within. "Rights" or "protections" or whatever, when applied at the level of a group or corporation, only apply to individuals when those individuals are acting on behalf of the group, and most certainly when they are acting on orders of that group. This is reasonable, since people when acting as a group have much greater power than when acting as individuals.
It is that disparity in power that demands that corporations not be afforded the same protections under the law as individuals. This is especially true since a corporation is answerable only to people who, themselves, are immune to the consequences of any actions taken by that corporation, while the government itself is answerable to the people (or was, until the corporations got control of most of the information outlets).
As agents with great economic power, corporations must be made answerable to the people just as the government is supposed to be. That cannot be accomplished without reducing their standing relative to individuals, and that cannot be accomplished without restricting their rights and protections. Failure to do this results in corporations wielding much greater power and control over everything, including government, than the people do, as is the case today here in the U.S.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.