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Airlines Have to Ask Permission to Fly 72 Hours Early
twitter wrote to mention that the TSA (Transport Security Administration) has released a new set of proposed rules that is raising quite a stir among groups ranging from the ACLU to the American Society of Travel Agents. Under the new rules airlines would be required to submit a passenger manifest (including full name, sex, date of birth, and redress number) for all flights departing, arriving, or flying over the United States at least 72 hours prior to departure. Boarding passes will only be issued to those passengers that have been cleared. "Hasbrouck submitted that requiring clearance in order to travel violates the US First Amendment right of assembly, the central claim in John Gilmore's case against the US government over the requirement to show photo ID for domestic travel. [...] ACLU's Barry Steinhardt quoted press reports of 500,000 to 750,000 people on the watch list (of which the no-fly list is a subset). 'If there are that many terrorists in the US, we'd all be dead.' TSA representative Kip Hawley noted that the list has been carefully investigated and halved over the last year. 'Half of grossly bloated is still bloated,' Steinhardt replied."
The Government in general, and specifically this administration, seems to want to be Orwellian in what it knows about everyone.
I remember in the 90's when the Secret Service first started closing off traffic near the White House. The easy North/South move on the West side got bogged down from the traffic problems: Penn Ave N of the White House is shut down; E Street S. of the White House is shut down. There is now an area of eight blocks where you can't go West without going North, or South. Under Clinton, the street got opened - for about a week until some bombing far away.
It's not that I object to security. It's just I object to security that pushes attacks onto innocents & away from those who "incited" the attacks in the first place.
I also remember being able to get onto planes without any time consuming security screening. Now we have to wait for everything to be checked forever. The screening does not make us any more secure*, it just takes longer.
Go big propaganda fear-mongering! we didn't need the free time to get to anywhere anyhow. If we did, we'd all be rich enough to have our own planes.
*: The airline screening does not really make us more secure, as there are still ways to get shit on a plane: Metal Detectors test for guns sold in the US, not guns sold outside the US with lower metal content. Or Ceramic guns. Or Knives without metal (say those nice expensive Kyoceria ceramic knives).
If you like: 2/3rds of a passenger planes cargo is other than passengers and their baggage: It's Air Freight packages. Those packages could easily hold a bomb. Or a passenger could check a bomb with a wireless control that can be carried in the cabin.
the only thing that has been done in the name of security that makes planes more secure was making real security doors on the Pilot's compartment.
From the PDF for the PROPOSED rule changes (not even final yet, still in public comment phase!):
"Additionally, for reservations made within 72 hours of scheduled flight departure time, covered aircraft operators would be required to transmit Secure Flight Passenger Data as soon as possible."
The TSA is just asking airlines to send what they have 72 hours prior to the flight, so they can correct false alarms earlier and do a better job of identifying problems.
RTFPDF.
Sounds good to me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Canadian Travel and Airline groups are pissed about those proposals too ( http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/10/12/airtravel-us.html ). Notice that the regulations also specify flights "Flying Over" US Airspace? So flights from Toronto to Cuba (or any other southern non-US destination) would also fall under those criteria. Guess Halifax and Moncton Airports better get cracking on expanding their capacity; all those Southern flights may have to fly from the Maritimes to keep out of US airspace. (That or we'll see more Montreal->Moncton->Caribbean flights so they can use the 'just skirting around the edges' clause of the proposals).
Hardly the ball-buster everyone is making it out to be.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Lots of people with no business on the watch list ended up on it without clear guidelines for getting yourself removed. Lots of vocal opponents of the Bush administration like Senator Ted Kennedy, a real terrorist name if ever I heard one ;( and Randi Rhodes, the screaming liberal radio host. Of course, if you complain then not only are you a terrorist sympathizer, you must hate freedom too. Reading conservative blogs, you see how funny they seem to think this is.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Only because they didn't place it very well.
To quote from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3069653/: On February 26, 1993, the World Trade Center merely shook but did not collapse. But it was a close call. Later, the WTC's architect would tell jurors that if the van had been left closer to the poured concrete foundations, they would have succeeded. The tower would have fallen.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
This was all over the Canadian news last night, as they also want the passenger lists of any flights merely flying over American airspace, for example, Montreal to Mexico City. They were originally going to have this rule apply to domestic flights that happen to cross American airspace (which is common with a flight like Toronto to Vancouver), but have thankfully backed down. Oh yeah, and people now have 10 days to comment about these new rules.
From the Kent v. Dulles case in 1957, around the McCarthy era, at the Supreme Court, Justice William O. Douglas' wrote for the court:
"The right to travel is a part of the 'liberty' of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. If that "liberty" is to be regulated, it must be pursuant to the law-making functions of the Congress. . . . . Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country, . . . may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values."
If we cannot see the "watch lists", then there is no way for us to challenge our presence on such a list. That in my opinion is taking away someone's right to travel without due process.
I'm a happy pessimist. I expect and prepare for the worst, when it doesn't happen I am pleasantly surprised.