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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.'"
Well, perhaps it's not funny... But pretty damn scary.
Hmmm.
The problem is there's a need to balance privacy rights with a hightened level of security.
Disclosing that much information is , in my opinion, excessive and crosses the line.
Of course, privacy seems all but dead these days, so maybe I'm just being too optomistic even about what could be. All I know is I don't think anyone needs my credit card info to figure out if I'm a security threat or not, not really.
"I hate quotations." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
without disclosing the transfers to travelers or asking their permission
Don't you mean terrorists? You can't tell citiz..-err, terrorists, that you're going to investigate them.
Welcome to the United States, where any random citizen is an enemy of the state.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
You make it sound (intentional or not) like this was done as part of an investigation. This data, however, was provided as part of a screening tool test. Grabbing needed information to investigate a crime that has already occurred seems acceptable. Grabbing personal information to make people into unwitting, unwilling guinea pigs is not.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Your credit card and medical information can easily be argued to be your "papers and effects." Privacy is one of the few rights that is specifically defined by the Constitution.
For years, back when I traveled a lot by plane.. and this was many years back... I ALWAYS used a fake name, and paid by cash. Why? Not because I had something to hide. I do not. But I DO believe that my business is just that: my business, and not yours, not the government's, not Acme Marketing's.. These days I travel by car, bus, walk, or ride a bike. I do not fly. I would see no difficulty in "hopping a frieght" if it came to it..
I have always wondered why good network geeks who go out of their way to hide their real IP, and take various other protective steps to insure their net is not violated, will hand over the most confidential data about themselves without a backward glance..
Every incremental step taken "for our own good", "To protect us", or whatever the reason du jours, is just another step away from what this land was once about. We have met the Evil Empire and him be US!
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Pop Quiz! Loy's unsworn, unwritten response was,
a) "Agencies other than TSA have used (passenger) data to test all of the functions of CAPPS II."
b) "TSA has used (passenger) data to test functions of screening systems not called CAPPS II"
c) "Agencies other than TSA have used (passenger) data to test functions of systems other than CAPPS II"
d) "TSA has used (passenger) data not to test, but to implement, CAPPS II",
e) "Agencies other than TSA have used (passenger) data not to test, but to implement, CAPPS II"
f) "Agencies other than TSA have used (passenger) data not to test, but to implement, profiling systems other than CAPPS II".
g) "All of the above are belong to us!"
Remember, we live in a litigious society.
Republicans: You can say - truthfully - that you "did not have sexual relations with that woman", and that still leaves room for gettin' the knob polished, spunkin' up her dress, and finishing off with a slightly fishy-smelling cigar.
Democrats: Now watch this drive!
Yeah and next we will all have to have the proper papers to fart. Let me ask you this. Since Sept 11 and the Patriot Act went into effect, are you or do you feel anymore secure? Does it make you sleep better at night knowing that the FBI can knock down the door of a suspected terrorist in the middle of the night? Your door in fact. Should your paper boy get pissed because you stiffed him last week on his tip and dropped a dime, told some agency that he has seen plans in your house of building blueprints. And they kicked in your door. Pulled your family out of your house at 3 am at gunpoint, this makes you safe? Statistically you have a greater chance of being eaten by a shark than ever encountering a terrorist. Personally I would rather live with the terrorist threat, than lose the freedoms that my father, and those before him fought for. Don't confuse false security with real security. Welcome to the new police state. They are watching us all.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
As history taught us (or not is seems)...
Laws increasing governments' power will ultimately be abused.
How long before the transmitted information will be used to catch tax-evaders? Be crosslinked with other data to find *potential* criminals (Minority Report anyone)?
The funny thing is that this information won't even help to catch any terrorists. How often can a suicide bomber be caught repeating his crimes? All that terrorist groups have to do is to send previously unknown people.
The only people suffering are average joes going about their lives.
And don't tell me: "If you don't have anything to hide, why bother." If that is the case, than why not install a camera in everybodys home ala 1984... Nothing to hide... No problem... Right?
And this is just the beginning. I remember a few years back an extensive camera system was installed in London, allegedly to find terrorists. Well, now this system is being used to catch speeders, and to track where everybody is going in the city just in case (which is used to collect tolls).
I call bullshit.
The only way to be totally secure , is to park your monkey ass in a shallow underground bunker and NEVER leave. Ever. Pray that your God delivers you food and water, because actually having someone deliver it is a risk. Going to the store to buy it is a risk. Eating anything ever handled by another human being is a risk.
In other words, welcome back to the dawn of man where just being alive is a security risk!
There is a deeper problem here. Any idoiot that believes if we only collected more information, we'd be a lot more safer, is fooling themselves and ignoring a much greater set of problems.
Terrorism exist because of anger, distrust, and a sense of hopelessness and/or exploitation. Deal with the core issues as they arrive, instead of waiting for them to fester and explode, and it is entirely possible to limit, if not actually eliminate, the rage quite literally blowing back in your face.
But its neither easy or convenient to think like this - in a capitalist society, some would even consider it heresy. It's time consuming - don't think that declaring a Palestinian state would make Osama retire tomorrow. It demands a greater understanding of foreign culture, idealogy, and history - don't assume that global economics will eventually "buy" peace by making all the citizens of the world consumers in a common market. It'll cost time and (get ready to flinch) money.
As a nation, the U.S seems far more attentive to the fear and loathing aspects of human existence, than it does its so-called "Christian" beliefs and values - there is very little of Christ in American christianity right now - and most of the fear is centered on pure and simple economic greed. Blame mass marketing, blame capitalism, blame anything, but this country loves its money and all the toys it can buy more than it has ever loved anything else. Other cultures see this, and resent it, and learn to hate it.
Just stop to think for one second what the goodwill payoff would be if a country like the U.S spent just one-tenth of its defense budget on development programs in third world countries. Millions of people would benefit, and, to give the hard-core capitalists a reality check, would be more likely to invest in U.S products and interests.
Just so my point is clear. Increased data collection will not stop the terrorists.
It will, however, make it easier to market to the families of the victims . . .
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
The bitterest pill to swallow is that for a brief moment, say from about 1968 (when civil rights started to mean something in the South) until about 1989 (when Bush I started to shred the Constitution in the name of the 'War on Drugs'), the United States of America really was 'the land of the free'.
Why is loss of freedom on-topic? Because it has the same cause as the privacy violations. As you wrote, "people continue to look the other way." Having freedom, or privacy, is an unstable condition. Either you're willing to fight to keep it, or somebody (usually politicians, sometimes powerful corporations) will take it away from you.