U.S. Government Wants June Passenger Records

danwiz was one of several readers to point out the Associated Press story (carried here by the Boston Globe) which says that that the Transportation Security Administration plans to issue an emergency order requiring that U.S. airlines turn over passenger data for all June 2004 flights to the government within 40 days. "Such data may include credit card numbers, address, telephone number and meal request. Perhaps unrelated to terrorism, the data will be also tested to see if fraud or identity theft can be detected."

Comments

Comment period

[stoborrobots]

Hopefully, in the 30 day comment period, the airlines make some worthwhile objections...

Who am I kidding?

Keeping you on your toes

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Bush is losing his post-convention bounce. Kerry gave a great speech to open the last phase of the election.

Gee, we need a distraction! Let's remind the voters that they need to be scared. A terrorist might kill you and you child at any minute! Only Bush can save you!

Re:Keeping you on your toes

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this flamebait? Bush has used fear quite successfully ever since September 11th. I'm sure all hard core Bush lovers (i.e. all Republicans) would disagree. They're I guess they're getting mod points, now. Of course, most of the Bush lovers are the ones saying, "They can have information about me. I've got nothing to hide."

You're right...

[bergeron76]

This gives them a "credible source" to be able to attribute your information to.

Seriously, they couldn't possibly arrest you as an "enemy of the state" just because you violated the Patriot Act/DMCA and were considered pseudo-potentially-suspicious by NSA, CIA, or FBI.

However, now that the "MCP^H^H^H Department of Homeland Security" is in place in conjunction with the "Transportation Saftey Administration", you can rest assured that travel information for June (and the months following) will ONLY be used for your protection.

Now move along Citizen...

... or our Gubment will open a can of "whatever-we-want-in-a-military-tribunal-exempt-of -your-constitutional-rights" on your Patriotic ass - you criminal, non-Christian punk.

(I have karma to burn, so if you think I'm trolling - bring it on... If there's ever been anything worth burning karma for in my lifetime, it's the future of the USA and the world in general. Even if you don't agree with my points, you owe it to yourself as a fellow intellectual to make the right decision in November [if you are or know a US Citizen] - VOTE!

Re:What's a little profiling among friends?

[renehollan]

It's posts like this that make it obvious just how it was that Hitler was able to round up Jews so easily.

Those that don't learn the mistakes of history are condemned to repeat them.

Re:Interesting

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Question: does anything stop these airline companies from exchanging this information (other than the CC number, perhaps) with each other? Does it really make sense for us to fear giving to our elected officials information that we already allow unelected corporations to play with to their hearts content?

I think it's time we realize--what the U.S. government knows is a superset of what any American corporation knows. If you give any information to any corporation at all, you should just expect the government can get their grubby hands on it at will. There is no law requiring a corporation to withold information requested by the government--or even to tell customers such information has been requested--even if the government has no right to compel such a revelation.