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American Airlines Information Gathering
matt-fu writes "Cory Doctorow posted a story on boingboing.net this morning describing a recent hassle while flying American Airlines. It seems that since he was traveling from the UK to the US with a Canadian passport, he was actually asked to give out the names and addresses of everyone he would be staying with in the US! He has written an open letter to AA in response. Has anyone else had something like this happen to them?"
Trying being a diabetic with an insulin pump. The security people aren't big fans of people with tubes coming out of them strapped to little computers.
This is probably an automated check on anyone with a 3rd country passport.
I've flown to the US (from the UK) with several different airlines, and I have to say that American Airlines gave me far more hassle than the others. My favourite bit was when I was travelling with a friend, and they separated us when we checked in to ask us questions like how long we'd known each other, how we met, etc. What did they think I was likely to say? "Well, we met at a terrorists' convention in 1998..."?
I find that very hard to believe. I'm a Canadian and travel to the U.S. several times per year. It has never happened to me, and I've never heard of it happening to anyone that I know.
I do, however, have a weirder story. A friend of mine (also a Canadian citizen) attended a Muslim wedding in Canada. On his return to his residence in the USA, the border guard asked him about the Muslim wedding that he attended! My friend had not disclosed that information, but the border people new about it and questioned him on it.
Either I've been smoking too much crack or my memory is shot, because I'm pretty sure I've been required to do that every single time I've flown to America (to visit family, first time was in 1999). I have a Danish passport and usually fly via Iceland, with Icelandair, but have also flown via the UK.
There's the usual "I will not commit terrorist acts" but also a section where you list who you will be staying with.
In 2002, I didn't have my cousin's then NY address handy, so I made one up. Good thing they didn't check up on it.
Funny story: On one trip, I had a present with me for a wedding, and had to take a national connecting flight from Boston to Baltimore. They had these things where they check for various trace chemicals that would indicate explosives. It of course went off five times on my suitcase, so the guy had it opened and went through it, item by item.
Finally he got to the present, a bottle of Gammel Dansk (a bitter alcohol), which was wrapped. He asked me what was in it, I told him. He then asked me if I had spent time near or on a farm previous to my flight, all the questions that would explain why I had trace chemicals on my luggage, but there was no apparent reason. He eventually let me go, when I started commentingthat I had to catch the connecting flight.
During the carry-on check, I realized I had a box-cutter in my pencil-case. There were also a couple of blades that were just floating around in there along with the pencils & pens. As the guy was rummaging through literally everything, including the pencil-case, I gotta admit I got a bit nervous that he would cut himself. He didn't find it, though. So much for thoroughness, heh.
My aunt was less lucky. She had her knitting pins confiscated and they almost ruined the cake she was bringing for the wedding.
It's NONE of their business. That's the point. They sold me a ticket, that's enough. What I am doing once I arrive in the US is absolutely not the concern or business of the airline.
Why on earth should I have to tell the airline anything at all about what I do for a living or where I'm staying? it's none of their business.
I have relatives in Las Vegas, so I go there quite often, neither for business nor for vacation.
So one day I'm at the Budget Car Rental desk, and the lady at the counter starts asking me questions, like "who are you staying with?" She wanted adressess and phone numbers, etc.
Now, I was so taken aback by all of this, that I confronted her, trying to understand what the point of the questioning was -- because it seemed to me that my credit card, insurance, drivers license, and the fact that I have very frequently made this same rental, weren't sufficient to get me past the counter.
She simply asserted that "the information was necessary before she could rent me a car." "Very well", I said, "you will not be renting me a car today. Please cancel my reservation."
I then went to the National shuttle, showed my National Emerald Card to the shuttle driver, went to the lot, picked out a car, and the shuttle driver even put my bags in the trunk for me. I had to show my card and my license at the doghouse gate, and that was that. The rate turned out to be cheaper than Budget would have been anyway.
Needless to say, I don't bother with Budget anymore.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
It seems that some here are completely missing the point.
The author, Cory Doctorow, was directed to an AA 'security counter' before checking in at the AA counter in Gatwick airport, not on arrival in the U.S., was interogated by an AA security officer and was asked to provide personal information on A BLANK PIECE OF PAPER. If I was Cory I would have been as upset as he was and I believe he asked the security officer some reasonable questions. The entire process was bizarre to my thinking.
Many have pointed out that you are asked for an address in your destination country, but by an INS offical not an airline employee, on an official customs form and certainly not before you board your flight. The only country that I know of that has customs pre-clearance to the U.S. is Canada, where the customs and immigration process is handled in Canada by American INS agents before you board your plane to the U.S. Upon arrival, you step off the plane and into the airport, no customs.
EFF founder John Gilmore has been fighting these so-called rules for some time now. Check out Gilmore vs Ashcroft regarding these rules.
Wired magazing wrote:
Our consituttion provides for redress of grieveances against the government. But how can you address something when you aren't even allowed to know it's number, title, or content?-
So it's a US thing? Please explain, then, why I had to fill out a form saying where I would be staying when I flew into London from the US?
Yes other countries require this information, I had to provide it when I went to Japan a few years ago as well. People are missing a couple of key differences though:- Countries that require this have a form that you fill this information out on. This gentleman was handed a blank sheet of paper. This alone should set off alarm bells.
- This "requirement" suddenly dissapeared when they found out he was a platinum club member. This either suggests that they believe no terrorist would bother becoming a platinum club member or they just harass people who aren't.
I suspect if he'd been given a form to fill this info out on the whole thing wouldn't have bothered him, or not nearly as much. I'd be rather suspicious of being told to write this info down on a blank sheet of paper. How do I know the security guard just doesn't like me and is going to go hunt down my friends to kill them? Silly thought? Maybe, but then again I truly would have no way of knowing if that was the case or not, and their seemed to be no official form to back up his claim that it was required.Ah, diabetes and airlines after 9/11. Such fun! ;)
;)
I have two stories here.
The first one was when I was checking in for a flight. Diabetic needleheads in my bag (these are sealed thumb-sized packages that you fit onto the end of an insulin pen). The attendant asked, probably for the umpteenth hundredth time, the boilerplate question "Do you have any sharp metal objects, etc, etc?". My nonchalant answer was "yes". After getting a few hundred "no"'s in a row, followed by my calm response of "yes", the look on her face was priceless. After leaving her in a state of confusion for a few moments I explained to her that I was diabetic, what they were for, and gave her a doctors letter confirming it. She seemed strangely relieved.
The not-so-happy second story was on a domestic return trip back home to Adelaide (Australia). After having traveled to a different state, on the way back the jerkoff checking my stuff (which I politely and properly declared), obviously looking for a power trip decided to give me a hard time for having too many needleheads (I had three). Never mind I can't eat food without getting sick without insulin. Sometimes needleheads break and warp, especially when you are trying to jab yourself with a pen between two other passengers on a cramped airline seat. I had a letter from my GP explaining I was diabetic, a medic-alert bracelet, etc, anticipating the whole post-9/11 paranoia. And I wanted to get home. I'm hoping karma comes back and bites that jerk in the ass.
I can't imagine what it would be like with an insulin pump. I put off looking into one for a while because I made too many flights post-9/11 and didn't want someone trying to yank the thing...
3000 died. That is true... it only took 3000 to lose our freedom in this country. Give it a second thought. After 3000 dead everyone who enters our nation is treated as a criminal. Now remember the hundreds of thousands who died to bring you that freedom. DO NOT GIVE UP YOUR FREEDOM SO EASILY. Hundreds of Thousands of Americans died to bring Freedom back to Europe. That was not even our own freedom. In the Revolutionary war 10s of thousands died to Create your freedom. Stop being Scared of life and start living it. An Oppressive government is no way to run a country. Honor our soldiers and honor our forefathers by asserting your rights to privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of worship and freedom to congregate. This is what makes America great. Read your history books and learn. No one is out to get you, though its hard to tell with the Alert set to "Orange" today.... hmmmmmm how do they come up with that anyway? Does that mean I should keep my gas mask in my car, just in case????
-One More Concerned American.
I'm a little late for this but it's an area I'm familiar with so I thought I'd contribute it.
The U.S. Customs Department is in the process of moving towards what they call "U.N. APIS" (Advanced Passenger Information System). Details can be found at here in the Word document US Passenger List; UN EDIFACT Message Set.
The U.S. APIS system which has been used for some time does not require destination address information. The U.N. format does. See the linked document pages 60-63 for more details. Eventually this will be required when flying any major airline coming into the U.S., not just American Airlines.
In all (civilized) legal systems I know, when the authorities detain someone, they either have to get a judge to OK the detention within typically 48 or 72 hours, or let the person go free. This is considered one of the fundamental principles all civlized legal systems are based on, right beside the whole "innocent until proven guilty thing". You might argue the detainees in Guantanamo are not suspects, but prisoners of war - in that case, the U.S. would have to treat them as such, which it does not (read the Geneva convention about proper treatment of prisoners, it's available online). Now, you could argue (and I'ld tend to agree with you) that the detainees we are talking about do not qualify as prisoners of war, but as "illegal combatants" - but you still have to *prove* that they are illegal combatants, which means that until proven guilty, they detainees are only *suspected* illegal combatants.
(Reasonable) people around the world are not complaining that the U.S. is detaining people that are possibly very dangerous and despicable terrorists; they are complaining that the U.S. reserves the right to deny any foreign national the same right to due process that the U.S. demands for it's citizens in those same countries. While this would be bad enough coming from any country, it's even worse coming from the self-proclaimed leader of the Free World.
I am *much* more afraid of a government that can detain me indefinately, without giving me any way to defend myself, than I am of the possibility of being killed by some Islamist nutjob.