Flying To the US? Pay In Cash

pin_gween writes to point us to a report in the Telegraph that British travelers using a credit card to purchase their ticket may now have their credit card and email accounts inspected by US authorities. This has been true since October, when the US and the EU agreed about what information the US could demand from airlines and how this information would be handled. But details of the agreement only recently came to light following a Freedom of Information request. The US says it will "encourage" US carriers to reciprocate to any requests by European governments. From the article: "[T]he Americans are entitled to 34 separate pieces of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data... Initially, such material could be inspected for seven days but a reduced number of US officials could view it for three and a half years. Should any record be inspected during this period, the file could remain open for eight years...'It is pretty horrendous, particularly when you couple it with our one-sided extradition arrangements with the US,' said [a human rights activist]. 'It is making the act of buying a ticket a gateway to a host of personal email and financial information. While there are safeguards, it appears you would have to go to a US court to assert your rights.'"

Comments

Re:TO our european friends

[stevew]

The funny thing is - when you KNOW someone is trying to drop your airplanes out of the air - and this isn't being paranoid - that big hole in the ground in New York supports the claim, then taking precautions to try and identify problem passengers BEFORE the plane takes off seems only prudent doesn't it?

As for any claims by other posters about our "fascist" government. Go look up the term "fascist." We're a long distance from it - and don't forget, we were part of the solution the last time such REAL nasty people took over Europe with plans of conquering the rest of the world.

How soon they forget.

Re:Agree - Don't like the requirements, stay home

[Lord Kano]

How many people who don't like these kinds of broad-band searches think that targeting/profiling is more acceptable?

I don't like either. But it does raise an interesting dilemma. If the authorities are not supposed to do some basic searches into everyone's background, what are they supposed to do when the public cries out for security? Are they supposed to place brown skinned people under extra scrutiny? What happens when the threat lies with fair skinned people? Do the people who support racial profiling only support it because they know that it's not them that will be profiled?

Wait until 30 years from now when the US is a much browner country. When white people are the minority, let's see how they feel about racial profiling.

LK

Re:Better yet

[ArcherB]

I've declined three employer-funded trips to business meetings and conferences in the USA in the past couple of years. The thought of having some jackbooted stormtroo^H^H^Homeland Security officer with a German shepherd on a leash screaming at me to produce my "PAPERS! PAPERS!" just turns me off. The USA is a place I just don't want to visit any more.

Just like you shouldn't believe everything you see on TV, don't believe all the BS you read here on /. Bush is not Hitler and the US is not Nazi Germany. If you blind folded me, dropped me off in downtown Toronto and asked me where I was, I'd guess Chicago, Minneapolis or some other place with similar climate. I travel to and from Mexico regularly and I'm asked where I've been, where I am going and if I'm a citizen. I've never been asked for my papers... except for when I went INTO Canada, but not on the way back.

The only time I've seen armed soldiers in an airport was right after 9-11 in the US, and every time I've been in an airport over seas. I'm sorry, but you've got life in the US all wrong. The US you speak of doesn't exist and never will, no matter how many times it is repeated by people like you. All you really do is remove any doubt concerning the level of your ignorance. (Note, I said ignorance, not stupidity. There is still hope.)