TSA Violated Privacy Act

pin_gween writes "Remember when the TSA said they wanted info on travelers last year? They said they were only using names to test new software. Apparently, they lied. The Guardian has an AP wire about a Congressional report on the TSA. From the article: 'The agency actually took 43,000 names of passengers and used about 200,000 variations of those names - who turned out to be real people who may not have flown that month, the GAO said. A TSA contractor collected 100 million records on those names.' They also 'published a second notice indicating that it would do the things it had earlier said it wouldn't do.' A TSA spokesman said the info will be destroyed when the test is over. My question -- will the test actually end?"

Comments

Re:The reason that we must not give up our freedom

[xs650]

is because there are people behind all of this. People are ultimately flawed, and can't be completely trusted without auditing processes

Are you implying that they can be partially trusted?

The TSA

[Nf1nk]

The TSA was a bad idea, it costs much more than the previous group of morons did, and don't do a better job than the last group of morons.
Instead because its goverment we get Grandmothers, and children stripsearched, because profiling is bad.
I can't help but believe that the level of incompedance is intentional, setting the agency up to be dissolved (privatized) with a juicy contract to Haliburton

Re:The TSA

[Martin Blank]

TSA security screeners are paid 50% to 100% more on hiring than the average salaries of the old screeners. Part of the problem was that the screeners were poorly checked, poorly paid, poorly trained, and not particularly effective.

Now they're semi-well-checked, well paid, poorly trained, and not particularly effective. The rates of getting banned items past them are about the same as they were before.

Re:The TSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead because its goverment we get Grandmothers, and children stripsearched, because profiling is bad.

Yes, we should profile people who look like the "American Talibe" John Walker Lindh, and then let's not forget those who look like the domestic terrorists Terry Nichols and Timothy MacVeigh . Lots of computer folks were the object of anti-tech terrorist, Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.

Let's profile people who look like them, after all, it's terrorism we object to, not their cause.

Re:The TSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Profiling is of more limited use than people may realize since terrorists are always looking for weaknesses in the system and profiling is like building in a blind-spot. You're announcing that certain types of people won't be scrutinized which spells opportunity for terrorists.

Of course, it's easier to recruit 18-35 year old males into terrorism so by checking a higher percentage of them you make it harder on terrorist planners to find effective agents, but no group should ever be immune from being checked: not children and not grandmothers. Searching only whose who appear to fit the profile would be as stupid as letting people sidestep security if they'd agree to swear to God that Jesus Christ is the only true Savior.

Re:The TSA

[erroneus]

I was TSA because I couldn't get a job at the time. I know the policies pretty well and I can tell you that they violate their own rules on a regular basis.

I'll also say that anyone who has been paying attention to the successful attacks can see that the perps fit NICELY into a profile and we should definitely be profiling. So sad for innocent people who fit the profile but facts are facts. I'd rather harass an innocent person who fits a profile than one that clearly doesn't. It's wasted effort.

It reminds me of an old joke where one guy is searching for a lost article. Another man asks what where he lost the article. The first man responds that he lost it in a different place. Puzzled, the second man asks, "then why are you searching here?" "Because, " the first man says, "the light is better here!"

Looking in places you KNOW are wrong is a bad idea.

Privacy Act violated by TSA!

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

So, what's the status of the prosecution? Has special counsel been appointed? Grand jury convened? Charges filed?

That's what I thought.

My question is..

[rsax]

A TSA spokesman said the info will be destroyed when the test is over. My question -- will the test actually end?

My question is....can you actually believe them considering they have already lied uptil this point? How I would love to work in the government; lie right through your teeth to get what you want, if you get caught, admit that you lied, shrug and move on. No sweat.

Funny, that

[greg_barton]

About midway through last year I started being searched every time I went through airport security. Every time. Every airport. What did I do to deserve this? I have no clue, except I tend to express somewhat liberal views on the internet.

The same thing happened to an aquaintence at about the same time. I found out about it because we were both on a flight to Honduras with our local scuba club. That must have really sprung some alerts. :P

Re:Funny, that

[michaelhood]

Indeed, I too have been getting "secondary screening" every time I've flown for several months. Interestingly, whomever else is in my party also gets it when we pick up the tickets. Usually my flight companions say that they seldom ever get it. We all fly over a hundred times per year. Not that it should matter, but I'm WASP, so I certainly don't fit any of their misguided cultural profiling. I wonder what other list I'm on. /tinfoil

Re:now do you understand the distrust?

[j_kenpo]

"Don't you love it when people predict that shit like this will happen, and they're instantly met with tinfoil hat jokes?"

No, I don't. I find it sad. It just proves a point, that ridicule is the most effective weapon the enemy has in its campaign to keep people at bay. You come up with a better presidential candidate, they ridicule him on the Tonight Show, and ridicule their supporters on MTV. You don't want to be laughed at do you? Lets laugh at these people because its Un-American" to support Dean, Kerry, or Clinton.

Its just sickening how lazy Americans have become. Back in the 60's people staged protests (real ones at least, not the half assed ones of today), they boycotted, they got together and really discussed the issues and did something about it. Today, Americans wont get off their asses because they would rather vote on who the next American Idol is than vote on their next president. This is why the government and big business walk all over us, because we don't do anything about it. But look at it this way, at least fast food workers and high school dropouts have a promising career in the TSA.

Thats my rant, Ill step off my soap box now...

Re:Its all about Bush, isnt it

[Anonymous Coward]

You're supposed to be the party of small government and letting people live their own lives, it's the "party of God" conservatives who have infiltrated and corrupted that original ideal into something else entirely.

Original republicans would have believed that the right to be personally free from coercion and compulsion is paramount, that that is the very definition of liberty. The conservatives believe that's man's nature as a child of God is paramount, and that liberty is actually restricting personal freedom in favour of encouraging religious adherance.

Essentially, they believe that it's okay to oppress the people (by censorship, by legally disadvantaging homosexuals, by imposing moral rather than practical laws on people) if that oppression brings about a greater fulfilment of society as good Christians, something which is completely opposed to the ideals of true liberty on which America was originally founded.

How can you fight people that have such an alien view of liberty, and even of truth? For the radical conservatives - and the radical leftwing idealogues too - truth is no longer defined as "that which is physically actual in the universe" and is instead "that which most supports the cause". The current example of the thinking is "What Karl Rove did is perfectly okay, because he did it to advance the cause".

Contractors and name variations

[treerex]

A couple of things to keep in mind here:

1. Try an experiment: download the given and surname data from the US Census bureau. Now take a random given name and a random surname, glom them together, and chances are you have someone's (yes, a real person's) name. Now do that, but add a database of name nicknames (Bill, Will, Willy, William) and you've probably generates a few more. The fact that they took a sampling of real names, generated variations, and came up with some new names, is hardly an invasive measure.
2. Government agencies will often use their contractors to perform work that would be illegal for the USG agency to do itself. That's one of the little loopholes that everyone in the game knows but doesn't talk about. It isn't about vetting the contractor for "ethics."

Now, I'm not saying that what the TSA does with the data they muster is right or valid, but I am saying that you need to be a little more informed in your outrage.

Government Sucks! bla bla bla

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I read comments like "we did it to ourselves" and "the govenment is outsourcing my SSN!" I'm reminded that I'm reading Slashdot where _everyone_ likes to generalize to the point of self-induced paranoia. I don't trust the government or any corporatation... or anyone I don't know with my PII either.

The point is - that's why we have laws. Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, GLBA and several others. Compliance is a major issue among many many US firms and some are taking proactive measures and fixing security, business processes and controls around PII. It's costing them millions of dollars. Corps are also legally held responsible for where they send your PII. They can't just outsource you SSN to Nigeria for "processing".

As a side note US is actually behind Europe on many privacy issues. As a general rule of thumb in US once you disclose your information to a corporation - they own it and choose how to use it. In Europe and some other countries around the world the corp doesn't own their customers' PII - the customers still do. Firms have to ask for permission to use your PII for something.

Re:Scope creap...

[Overzeetop]

Yes, yes, its good they caught a druggie. The problem is, that's not their job, and they went beyond their authority. I agree with you, but deceided to post here instead of to the children.

The whole idea of the TSA was to prevent airplane hijackings and bombs. Make the skies safe. The bargain was - you relinquish a bit of privacy, and in turn well make it harder for terrorists to kill people using airplanes.

For all of you who think that its okay that they turned this guy over to the DEA with no more than a suspicious package, I suggest you lobby your congressman for random door-to-door seraches, to be carried out at least once per month, along with mandatory traffic stops on all roads for full searches of persons and vehicles. I would also suggest automotive balck boxes in every car - antique to just off the assembly line. A weekly stop at the DMV for an outomated print out of your traffic violations would get you straight pretty fast. I mean, imagine all the crime we could prevent. People with unapproved gasoline containers, homeowners bungled wiring jobs, all the way up to dead bodies in basements. I mean, we could be looking at a 30 or 40% drop in crime. But is it worth your freedom? Is it worth prosecuting minor infractions? Where does it stop.

Before you claim your innocence and lack of fear, I suggest you take a close look at your life. I would venture to say that every human over the age of 3 has violated the law at some point in this country, and more tha 95% do so more than once a week. It may be minor, and is probably has absolutly no impact, which is why it doesn't matter. Are you willing to take the chance that you, or one of your family, is the one to be made an "example" of? I'm not.