Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Is this even legal to distribute credit card numbers like that?
I hear that there's this websize h@x0rz.hk that'll happily buy such lists of information. Does this precident mean it's Ok to share with them?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I understand the worry and concern about mis-use of this data, BUT as I recall, and you might also, in the short months directly following the 4 attempted attacks using airliners the airlines and associates were running scared and were providing the FBI and later HSA any and all information they had, requested or not.
So any surprise or concern over this data seems misplaced. Patterns were being examined and evidence compiled. Yes, extreme measures were taken and should be acknowledged and where appropriate apologized for, but these events should surprise noone and these revelations simply confirm what we already know.
Some people(and corporations) do foolish things when faced with a catastrophe.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
So? Forget the fact that all of this information is available on the Internet, the FBI can pull this information very quickly anyway. I support this because it just eliminates the wasted time for the FBI to do so. Passenger tracking by governments is going to be a way of life permanently thanks to a few morons. Just prey it doesn't extend fully into automobile driving, trains, or buses. The fundamental issue here is citizens willingness to have their personal information and whereabouts freely available by the government they are currently involved with, be that their home country or the country they reside in. But I think that is just a phantom of the real issue which is people's fears that by governments simply having that information it can be stolen or sold to somebody to use it against the individual. This is a valid concern in most countries right now. As governments advance and globalize, this kind of information sharing should become more secure and less invasive. Meaning full detailed information will not need to be kept on anyone because if you are in a modern country the needed information will be generated when you need it and not sitting on a server to be misused. I personally don't mind my government (US) tracing my whereabouts and my purchases because I don't feel they can use that information against me. Mainly because I do nothing that they would conceive as harmful to them. Some people want to keep everything private because they fear misuse, but I truly believe most people that want to keep everything out of government hands is because they have something to hide. Perhaps I am wrong in calling them the majority, but I don't understand when someone is worried about your government knowing where you are or how to find you.
I stole this sig.
Compounding the problem is the vagueness of policies and incomplete training of personnel. My laptop gave a false positive for TNT a while back, so I had to submit to a secondary search at the security checkpoint. Besides proving that the laptop did indeed boot up, the police officer double-clicked on my trashcan to see what files were there, and checked the dropdown on my browser to see what recent links I had been to.
It didn't look like the officer was following any kind of script, was just nosy. But I was quite steamed about it at the time. (Good thing I had recently cleared both before packing the laptop!)
Trying to keep dangerous weapons off of planes is a futile effort.
Yes you confiscate a gun, whoppie. I can take my steel bodied ink pen and a paper bag full of gunpowder. No one is screening for matches. As long as we allow the people on board we are allowing weapons. The mind is the only real weapon anyway. I find the security in airports a joke. I flew threw Portland, recently, and a terminal was being remodelled, cordless drills and tools everywhere, with no one watching them at all(I assume it was the lunch break for the crew). Anyone could pick up and take whatever they want onto the plane. In Cincinati you can buy the nail
clippers that are prohibited in the terminal. Take liquids for instance, we don't check them to see if they are volatile. Anyone could walk on board with a 20oz Sprite bottle filled with nitro and no one would question it.
I will say it again airport security is a joke. period.
The only way that I see to secure our airlines, is to issue every adult border a knife/handgun/weapon. Then we can be sure that everyone is armed. Perhaps a simple check, "Are you prepared to defend the plane if terrorists attack?" if not you can drive.
Just my 2 cents.
#### ## Laroue ####