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Airlines Gave More Data Than Previously Disclosed
scottfk writes "Wired news has an article exposing the fact that still more customer data recorded by airlines were turned over to the TSA for their CAPPS II testing. From the article, 'Delta, Continental, America West, JetBlue and Frontier Airlines secretly turned over sensitive passenger data to Transportation Security Administration contractors in the spring and summer of 2002, according to the sworn statement of acting TSA chief David Stone. In addion, two of the four largest airline reservation centers, Galileo International and Sabre, also gave sensitive passenger information, including home phone numbers, credit card numbers and health data, without disclosing the transfers to travelers or asking their permission.'"
If they mis-handled Social Security numbers alone (simply by sending them to the TSA without the approval of the people who possess those SSNs) then this is a very clear violation of the Privacy Act. Hello lawsuit?
YOu cant refuse to give them your name anyways.
They still'll get all your data.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
I'm posting this AC because it touches on my job and I try to keep that separate.
Sabre and Galileo are Global Distribution Systems, or just GDSs to people in the travel industry. Several are or were started by groups of major airlines. Worldspan is another; I forget the names of the rest. There are about five of them in total, and they formerly were a very heavily federally regulated industry, the idea being that if they were allowed to, for example, choose their own prices they could offer different prices to different airlines (or different travel agents) and exert an unfair hold on the market. They've been deregulated by Congress within the last year, but it's too soon to say what effect that will have.
The relevant part is this: If you purchase a plane ticket, regardless of how or where you buy it, your availability and booking are handled by one of the GDSes. Access methods vary by GDS, but the reality of it is, much of your information is available to not just the government, but really anyone with the proper knowledge of how to get at it. I can't imagine too many hackers being very interested in getting your mom's flight information or personal info from Sabre, but if they did it wouldn't be especially hard.
There aren't a lot of choices to insure your privacy here. Most of us can't realistically choose not to fly.
Constitution Ammendments 1,2,4,5,6,9,10 Provide Constitutional privacy protections...
please note, that NO-where did I use the phrase right to privacy, I said constitutional privacy protections.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Here's a complete sentence you lumbering, trogolodytic, slope-skulled, grunting moron:
Not a single one of them would have been saved by the PATRIOT act even if it was 500 times more draconian than it is, because the CIA already had the legal power to neutralize the guilty parties in those cases before PATRIOT passed.
So, your theory here, I suppose, is that people who don't get caught because nobody can locate them when the authorities already have the legal power to arrest or kill them, would magically appear in broad daylight on the town square if we passed enough unnecessarily Draconian laws giving them... more legal powers that they didn't need to make an arrest or launch a raid? Good theory. Might I just say that I'm glad you're not the one in charge of guarding us?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
HIPAA only applies to Covered Entities:
- Health plans
- Health care providers
- Health care clearinghouses
Thus these companies are not Covered Entities and are not bound by HIPAA law, unless they have a Business Associate Agreement with a Covered Entity to preform some function for them, but that is very unlikely.I take it that you don't sit too far from the center of the political spectrum. You're probably not a third party supporter (Communist, Green, Libertarian, etc.). You're probably not Muslim. You're probably not gay or lesbian. By your statements, you don't strike me as an activist for social justice or civil liberties. It might surprise you to learn that our country has quite a lot of folks who, for some reason or other, are currently or will eventually be persecuted for being different, holding different political or religious beliefs, or pissing off the wrong elected official. Think about the journalists--what happens when their every move is known in advance? This is a power that the government should not have, not without warrants and the traditional Constitutional protections given to our people by the Bill of Rights.
Head over to Wikipedia and read the article on CAPPS (disclosure: I wrote it a few months ago) and CAPPS II. There are so many problems with this system, besides the big one--it won't work.
In my opinion, the most disheartening aspect of this debacle is that a syndicate of large corporations lied to the public, lied to their customers, and undermined the Constitution. But there will be no reckoning. This is a burning example of our corporate "citizens" escaping responsibility.
Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged".
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
"A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear... the truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others... The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.
But there also will be tangible, specific harm.
Here's where Ashcroft is using the essay as a guidebook:
"Last summer, the CCRA informed me that, contrary to its past undertaking, it has decided to keep all API/PNR information about Canadian travellers for six years in a massive new database.
All this personal information - more than 30 data elements including every destination to which we travel, who we travel with, how we pay for the tickets (sometimes including credit card numbers), what contact numbers we provide, even any dietary preferences or health-related requirements we communicate to the airline - will be available for an almost limitless range of governmental purposes...
"This is unprecedented. The Government of Canada has absolutely no business creating a massive database of personal information about all law-abiding Canadians that is collected without our consent from third parties, not to provide us with any service but simply to have it available to use against us if it ever becomes expedient to do so. Compiling dossiers on the private activities of all law-abiding citizens is the sort of thing the Stasi secret police used to do in the former East Germany. It has no place in a free and democratic society...
It is difficult to imagine a m
...I have to say that this is scary, considering that both Sabre and Galileo aren't limited to airlines for their clientele. In other words, if you booked a hotel, rented a car, bought a train ticket, or anything other transaction that can be made on Travelocity (a Sabre Company), then your info could possibly be in the hands of the TSA or other third parties. Also, I remember when I first started working there, I had to fill out a bunch of paperwork stating that I would not give out sensitive information to third parties. This is crucial considering most of the paperwork was for EU compliance. I'm not surprised that the EU is not in an uproar.
Where's the French when you need them?
"Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two" -- RFC 1925