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

Give the Govt What It Needs

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Arguably the government can use the data to do a better job of investigating and preventing terrorism.

And so it should.

But, the current policies are being driven forward with that single-minded objective with no consideration whatsoever given to the preservation of the rights and liberties that have made America a desirable place to be a citizen.

Sure we can defeat terrorism - but who wants to live in a police state?

The government should institute the recommendation of the 9/11 commission to create a truly independent advisory panel to oversee these unprecedented encroachments into citizens rights to insure there are no abuses and that the data is used for legitimate law enforcement purposes only.