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American Airlines Is Third Company To Share Data
crem_d_genes writes "American Airlines has become the third U.S. airline to admit sharing passenger records with the government. They were proceeded in admissions by Northwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways. At the heart of the matter is the implementation of the of U.S. Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) use of the provisions known as CAPPS II. Some privacy advocates have expressed strong dissent with this plan. Some concerns have even been brought up in Congress, though for different reasons. The Department of Homeland Security has a site entitled CAPPS II: Myths and Facts."
The way it works is called the carnival booth attack, and it is described in much detail in this paper.
The basic idea is very simple. A person gets a score from the system, which is based on how likely they are to be a terrorist. Then, CAPPS II has most of the searches directed at people with high scores. So, a terrorist group needs only do a number of test runs, and see who does and doesn't get searched. The people who don't get searched obviously have low scores, and so they use them for the attacks. And in case you were wondering, yes, the terrorists are already using this scheme -- it was used in the 9/11 attacks. The hijackers did test runs, on the same exact flights to make sure everything worked as planned.
So, if there was an actual tradeoff to be made, then a rational debate could be had about the appropriate tradeoffs to make. But when they try to take away my privacy and as a result decrease the security, that I have a serious problem with.
Myth: CAPPS II will track where and when I travel and will store that information.
Fact: For U.S. persons, information will only be kept for a short period after completion of the travel itinerary, and then it will be permanently destroyed. The prescreening process will be conducted anew each time you fly.
I don't think this will be possible at all. Consider the fact that the information that they collect about a person will have to be backed up to other media to provide recovery options in case of system failures in the CAPPPS II system. Then it will be virtually impossible to permanently remove data.
This is the same situation that Google recognized when it said that their GMail service cannot be guarantee that emails will be permanently deleted.
You should know that Amrerican probably shares data routinely with marketers and other private concerns. How else can companies know who to best target travelers with hotel offers, cruises, even luggage and credit cards.
It seems that in this environment we should ask the question: How much more can it really hurt to have the government also obtain this information? How much can we gain from this access, especially in the war on the terrorists?
Fair enough - don't you think the parties concerned should be honest about it though? From what I've read so far AA and USTSA denied that there was any sharing of data - why?
If my GP (doctor) asks me if it's OK to share my medical history with a surgeon I'm unlikely to object. If she fails to ask my permission I will object strongly. If she lies, and claims that she didn't share my data - well, that's worthy of more than just an objection.
...Oh, and by the way, some schmuck will find a way to blow up planes with or without data sharing, internment, shoot-to-kill policies, bloody-great walls, compulsory ID cards, razing villages, etc.
NB. I'm not suggesting that all of the above are current tactics against terrorism: they have all been tried at some point in recent history.
This is where the serious fun begins.
Am I supposed to be outraged by this or something? I'm sorry but we NEED to know whether people who are trying to get on an airplane are on some watchlist or what have you. So I'm afraid that the basic need to be secure trumps some schmuck's paranoia that the gov't knows he's travelling from point a to point b.
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
I don't see this particular thing as a very serious breach of personal integrity, the question is where else do they share data like this? I may be a bit paranoid, but the expression "just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean someone is not out to get me" seems quite appropriate here...
Apple built a platform for their ideas, Google built one for everyone's.
Why is this even news? People, the days of anonymous traveling are coming to an end. It's just a fact. The government is determined to know who is going where, especially when using risky modes of transit, such as trains or airplanes.
I predict that within 20 years, USAmerican citizens will be ID'd even as they cross state borders. Adjust my prediction to 10 years, if there is another September-11-like attack in the near future.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
No such thing that I ever heard of. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says this:
Article 13.
These measures do not prevent anyone from doing that. They merely allow the government to take note when he does. I don't mean to say I like it, but your implication that people aren't allowed to watch you move around is not, in my reading, supported by the document.
~cHrisYou think SPAM filtering is hard?
In 2003, there were 641 Million passengers on U.S. flights.
Zero of them actually attempted to destroy their flight. One of them would have been sufficient (the Shoe Bomber, for instance). The people tasked with finding this individual must thus be accurate to a level of one out of six hundred and forty one million.
By comparison, the odds of winning Powerball are approximately one out of one hundred and twenty million.
But people do win the lottery, quite regularly in fact. Lots of people have to lose, of course -- that's what funds the thing -- but it's not a particularly rare occurance.
That's sort of the idea here. Given enough "losing tickets", we'll beat the odds. And even if we don't -- at least we tried (which, ultimately, is what all the controversy is about right now -- not whether we succeeded in stopping the attacks, which we obviously didn't but whether "we tried".)
Hate to quote Scott McNealy, but like the man who sells the servers that store all our personal information says, "You have no privacy, get over it." Everyone gave up the flight info, because everyone was damn near thrown out of business. That's the bottom line.
If I were a terrorist an attack such as the 9/11 one would be off the agenda.. it'd seem virtually impossible to pull off.. instead, as witnessed in Madrid, train attacks and/or ferries/boats attacks seem much more softer targets with no less impact.
Whatever methods are employed, when you're up against raving madmen, there's not much you can do.
Personally, I think the government is barking up the wrong tree with airplanes. What they should really be more worried about is the nation's subway systems. I hang my hat with the MBTA (Massachusetts subway system), and believe me when I say this: it would be trivial for someone to blow up a train. The collateral damage from an explosion going off at Park Street during rush hour would be devastating. But that's not really on-topic, I guess. :P
I agree that subways are an easy target. The main difference, as I see it, is that an airplane can be hijacked and itself used as a weapon. I suppose a subway could be hijacked, but considering they can only be driven on the track, doing so would be of limited utility. You'd have to have a bomb, which hopefully could be detected by conventional means. I guess what I'm saying is that you'd have to have more than just malicious intent to do damage to the subway system.
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
This is just going to destroy the US research community, which was once the greatest in the world. Goodbye, conferences.
If you are having a "research" conference and the mere fact that you will be logged as having traveled to the conference is a problem, then you have to wonder about what is being researched.
If the purpose of your conference is legit, then this should be not a problem at all.
-- $G
From a personal perspective: I've travelled the US about 15 times and spent a significant amount of my tourist Euro there.
In the words of the famous AOL subscriber, "Me too."
I've been to the USA at least twice a year for the last ten years. I was actually in NYC the Oct. after the WTC crash, because I wanted to support the NY hotel and tourist economy at that time. It was really peculiar and very moving to be in Greenwich Village at 10.00pm on a Thursday evening and see the streets deserted aside from a few homeless people and a handful of kids.
Last time I flew was November last year. Air tickets were cheap (around 200 return) so I paid cash. I also made the mistake of flying Air France because I couldn't get a BA flight.
On arrival, the immigration guy gave me the third degree. What was the purpose of my visit? What did I do for a living? Had I ever been arrested? (Answer: no.) What had I been arrested for?
It seems that my answers didn't satisfy him, because he escalated my case, sending me to the 'big room' in which mine was the only white face to be seen.
They kept me hanging around for about three hours, whereupon a senior official came along and asked me a more polite series of questions. (What was the purpose of my visit? Where was I staying? When would I be leaving, etc.) This lasted about two minutes and then they let me in.
Needless to say, I won't be going again. I love the USA and I have some very close friends who are Americans, but in future they can spend their dollars here in Europe, because I'll be fucked if I'm going back there without a significant regime change.
In 2002, there were 42,815 traffic fatalities in the US. There was presumably a similar number of traffic fatalities in 2003, although I couldn't find the exact number. That's one death every twelve minutes. A September 11 every month. Why do we care so much about airplanes? What makes them so damned important that we can't stomach a single crash, while tens of thousands of people die on the roads every year?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
We Americans have an exaggerated sense of danger - I don't know if it's because of all the violence in our media or we're just scared.
Another thing the nobody has stated yet is the fact that these databases are NOT completely accurate. We're going to be getting a lot of false positives. We've all read about what happens to the folks who are falsely fingered and what they have to go through.
Considering the inaccuracy of corporate data - that's right, that's where the TSA's data is coming from - how does one get it fixed? The TSA will just say that's what they got from the corps. If you go to the TSA's source, you'll just get the typical run around from them - "Oh, It's not our responsibility if there are errors because we get it from so and so." Or they may just blow you off. Don't believe me? Wait. This happened to a friend of mine. He couldn't get a loan because they had very old data that even the credit bureaus deleted. The bank just said "It's our policy and there's nothing to be done!"
I'll only be happy if there's a legal recourse for those wrongfully fingered and can't get the information fixed. That's right, feed the trial lawyers! But what are we supposed to do? Sit back and take it?
it's all explained in the paper, so I highly recommend that you read it.
Looking at stupid vs. 'smart' terrorists, it all really depends on how many stupid terrorists there are per smart terrorist. The smart ones shift the number of false negatives (passengers which are wrongfully not flagged) while the stupid terrorists increase the number of true positives. Obviously, to determine if this shifts the balance in favour of the terrorists (over purely random searches) or if it puts them at a disadvantage would require an analysis with some actual numbers.
HAND.
People study where the best departments and research centers are. The US attracted many of the world's top students during the 70's, 80's and 90's, because in some fields, research was most advanced. Part of the reason was because not only was Europe devastated in WWII but many of its researchers emmigrated to the U.S. before and during the war as well as during the early phases of the Cold War. It became self-perpetuating. When the leading centers were in pre-war Europe, Europe was sought ought. When the leading centers were in post-war U.S., the U.S. was sought ought.
Now the have been two generations of post-war reconstruction and there is increasing incentive for them to stay home or return back home. The pull of good centers is augmented by the push provided by the Dept. Homespun Security, Patriot Act I-III, etc.
So the U.S. is losing the safe haven benefit and the dynamic equilibrium is changing. This will eventually stabilize even with things like CAPPS II and a general increasingly anti-research climate (many businesses have already cut their R&D, even Xerox PARC is gone).
However, a real tipping effect can be achieved by adding quality of life and economic issues to the equation. Many businesses have been cutting health coverage. And while there are still some good areas many cities are lacking in basic services like public transportation (could you commute if you wished?) and decent schools (where hard math and science is mastered). Furthermore, businesses have been downsizing and look to be doing so making it a hard climate. The climate is getting harder as the interest rates are at the bottom and both the national decificit and trade deficits are growing. Add the weak dollar to the mix, which might be hiding deflation behind the trade deficit, and it might be better to earn instead of $.
Then you have patents and litigation to deal with, if some corporation objects to your results -- e.g. Felton.
Behaviors like that are just going to ensure that a few more researchers choose to go home and build their centers in Europe, Aus/NZ, India or China.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Not exactly there is something called a safe harbour the information about EU citizens being in the system was something that was negotiated later.
What amazes me is not that the EU allows it (what choice does it have?), but that it does not reciprocate.
Considering the EU managed to force America's hand over data protection and the safe harbour (not to mention steel tariffs) it is a surprise they backed down over this as they know they can win these issues especially as CAPPS lowers security.
that it does not reciprocate. I'd like to see a special queue at Brussels airport where visiting American tourists are finger-printed, photographed, and generally treated like criminal suspects. /me thinks the concept of "tolerance and personal liberty" would soon find a new meaning.
Don't worry they will once enough people complain about it and someone looks into the security aspect.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Oh, and by the way, some schmuck will find a way to blow up planes with or without...
Exactly. In all these arguments it seems a forgon conclusion that a terrorist will try to blow people up. If the education and social interaction of the society where improved then the number of potential terrorists would be reduced. Hopefully to a level where the chances of a few of them meeting up were slim. The prevelance of extremist followers of all religions (Osama-Islam, Bush-Christianity, Sharon-Jewdehism) increases the threat of terrorism and violence greatly. I would not at all be surprised if i read tommorow that an extremist 'Christian' group blew up a mosque in the US. When was the last time you heard of an aethiest terrorist?
Eschelon will be flagging me straight to the top, don't think i could have fitted more keywords in if i'd tried, wonder what CHAPPS score i'll get after this post is added to the database ;o)
My spelling isn't bad, I'm evolving the language
there is only one way to effectively win a war the following is how it was done in Oman
22 SAS were sent to assist and an elaborate 5 front hearts and minds campaign, conceived by Watts, was rapidly instigated. The essence of the strategy was to eliminate Omani dissatisfaction; Quabus began a large works programme that would propel Oman into the twentieth Century. The problem now was how to get this message across to the rebels and to get them to understand the truth that there was no longer any need to fight. The commander felt that the original rebels did have right on their side because they simply wanted a better way of life. Part of Watt's plan was psychological; he made certain that the Sultan's far-reaching policies became common knowledge, along with the offer of amnesty to any surrendering rebels. From these defectors it was hoped that levies would be raised to fight the defectors, Watt's strategy was spot on and within month's defectors started to cross the lines. These men (furcats) trained and later became the backbone of fighting in Oman; by mid 1971 support from the local tribes was gradually being won.
This is the UK equivalent of Vietnam in that the fight was against communist insurgents, the difference in the tactics employed by US and UK and the results could not be more glaring. Time and time again it has been shown that firepower is not what wins wars (fights yes) but brain power which earns you the support of the population.
Terrorist Etc can only be defeated if you remove there support, not by killing the son/daughter mother/father of a potential terrorist recruit
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
In the past, terrorists have tended to target planes partly because many of them were trained along communist lines. Terrorists tended to get a lot of Marxist class theory mixed with their bombmaking 101, and believe that preferred targets were the ones "used by the ruling classes". Subways were too proletarian for their tastes. It would be interesting to know if the current generation of terrorists is working from similar assumptions. I wouldn't be surprised if Al-Quida thinks they are selectively targeting Jews by using planes and hitting financial offices, but they can't be getting much of their doctrine from the old Marxists, as those would have been very vehement about NOT hitting the pentagon or the White House.
Who is John Cabal?
I agree that a 'Christian' terrorist group is quite possible (If Oklahoma City isn't proof there are already some out there), and that genuine education and social justice are both needed to steer the uncommitted towards non-violent methods, but your last question begs for a rebuttal.
"When was the last time you heard of an aethiest (sic) terrorist?"
The Bader-Mannhoff gang, the Shining Path Marxists in Peru... The list goes on and on. Until the fall of the Soviet Union, the world has been going through a cycle of mostly Atheistic terrorists that has lasted over 100 years. Remember World War 1? Who killed the archeduke Ferdinand and kicked it off? Terrorism is no more exclusive to religions than flight is to insects, unless you want to call both Marxism and Anarchism religions.
Oh, and Echelon hardly trips on generic words such as terrorism. If you want to bug the NSA, you'll get much better results with specific tech words, such as the names of explosives or particularly correct technical names for nuclear or biological warfare elements. Also saying POTUS instead of "the president" is a nice touch.
Who is John Cabal?
The fact that you and many like you choose not to practice eternal vigilance, lazily stating "I have nothing to hide, so I'm not opposed to loss of my rights" as if that excuses the transformation of our Democratic Republic into a tyranny sickens me. You and our other fellow Americans who sit on their dead ass while the government murders our country are the real threats to our society.
Two last parting thoughts:
Yeah, right.
As has been proven by something called Carnival Booth any system for screening potential threats that does not have a sufficiently random element can be beaten. The system will supposedly screen some people everytime and will screen some people none of the time. This means if I'm a terrorist and me and 9 terrorist friends get on a plane, and one of us doesn't get screened, we send him on 5 more flights, if he never gets screened there's a good chance he never will (assuming nothing changes his risk status). He's then a good candidate to do bad things. Basically, the system provides a way for terrorists to find out who's a good candidate that wont be stopped while trying to get onto the plane.
That's my objection to the system. Furthermore, why is racial profiling considered evil? It's not saying, oh you're arabic, you must be a terrorist, it's saying you're arabic, x% of terrorists we've found are arabic, so if we screen more people who look like you, we might catch more terrorists. Obviously we shouldn't screen based solely on race but why is it bad to single out people who fall into a group that historically has been more likely to be a problem as opposed to senator's w/ metal in their hips or old grandmothers w/ hip replacements?
In my life I don't recall the Pope ever promoting war. What does extremist mean exactly in this context? I never heard the Pope say that God is with us so lets kill people, I hear GWB say it all the time. I'm not trying to flame I am just a little confused on how GWB and the Pope can be compared on any level.
So:
1) it could come out that they get busted on the test run and reveal the whole plot.
I don't think they'd be carrying explosives during CAPPS probes. Besides, the one guy who did get revealed is not the one they'd pick to perform the operation, since he got screened during the probes. With proper compartmentalization, the TSA now has one guy who was expendable, not the whole plot. And that's assuming you were doing something naughty during the probes in the first place; keep clean during the probes, and you don't get busted.
2)the longer it takes for them to find a successfull canidate the better chances are that they get stopped and the longer it takes to put together an attack.
These probes can be done in parallel. Also, attacks can take quite some time to prepare; you don't put somebody through flight school overnight. The few days to make probes isn't going to make a big difference. Depending on the rest of your schedule, you may be able to execute the probes before you do the "big chatter" stuff that's likely to get the Feds curious.
3) so lets say the get a guy who is the anti-sterotype of a terrorist - he may do other things that trigger the system.
Huh? If you deliberately pick an anti-stereotype, that assumes that you know what CAPPS uses, so you know what things trigger the system. That's a white-box bit of work, and requires no probes. But CAPPS is black-box, and the attack is against it as a black box: you just look and see who doesn't trigger the system.
in the end there is nothing you can do to stop a terrorist or any other criminal for that matter. but you can make it harder for them.
The point of the paper is that CAPPS may be making things slightly harder (because you have to probe), but also less likely to get caught and stopped (because you can execute an attack with a lower-than-random chance of getting busted).
Personally, I'd rather attacks against me and mine be easy and unlikely to succeed, than difficult and likely to succeed.