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What the DHS Knows About You
Sherri Davidoff writes "Here's a real copy of an American citizen's DHS Travel Record, retrieved from the US Customs and Border Patrol's Automated Targeting System and obtained through a FOIA/Privacy Act request. The document reveals that the DHS is storing: the traveler's credit card number and expiration; IP addresses used to make Web travel reservations; hotel information and itinerary; full airline itinerary including flight numbers and seat numbers; phone numbers including business, home, and cell; and every frequent flyer and hotel number associated with the traveler, even ones not used for the specific reservation."
Your full, unencrypted credit card information available in our logs to every DHS employee is necessary for us to fight the evil terrorists.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I'd rather have all the CCTV in the world than giving my entire identity, credit cards and all, to any DHS cocaine addict who happens to need a fix. At least CCTV can't read my passport and credit cards.
I piss off bigots.
Yeah, I liked travelling to the US better when all I had to do was check the correct boxes on the amusing green form:
[x] I am not a terrorist
[x] I am not planning a child abduction in the US
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
What if you don't HAVE a credit card? What THEN? "Sorry, we can't let you enter the country without a credit card."
If the sole purpose is to fund advertising (as you say they claim), then cash should be an acceptable form of payment. If it is really a ruse to get a credit card number, then one shouldn't have to pay it if one doesn't have one. I, for one, refuse to get into a drawn-out discussion with Border Patrol about my financial decisions.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
so we need to revise a few docs to say "bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses with cash, check, or money order for $10 us..."
Good people go to bed earlier.
then canceling my card and getting a new one
Assuming U.S. authorities are using your credit card information to track behavioral patterns, that won't help you much if the card is issued by the same bank. Even banks in Switzerland are routinely turning over information on account holders these days.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
There's a solution for that [yes, SFW], and an appropriate safety video has already been done for at least one airline [marginally SFW].
If you don't have a credit card, then it must mean that you're trying to do things with untraceable cash. And that means you're a terrorist!
A better question might be 'How does ANYTHING that DHS does curb terrorism?'
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
"No, Ma'am, the [Department of Homeland Security] do not have a sense of humor we are aware of."
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
If I've been caught waterboarding someone, is is isn't otherwise it's is and vice-versa. How about you?
Requiem for the American Dream
It stops terrorism about as well as the Canadian Gun Registry, London CCTV, and the Patriot Acts combined = 0, at least officially according to the General Accounting Office or their countries equivalent. Of course the real number they say, is secret, and zero isn't a real number...
- - - Non Caffeine Drink or Drink Error
They have these crazy things in Europe called "trains" that connect city centres without having to hang around in an unfashionable suburb for a few hours waiting to be put into a metal tube. You don't even have to take your shoes off to get on them.
Silly Europeans always have such a skewed sense of geography. Newark to Tampa is 1,000 miles, exactly. It's a two and a half hour flight and a 20 hour train ride.
2. Didn't eat your meal on the way back from Central or South America? Expect to be stopped at re-entry
The flight crew on your average longhaul flight do not give a flying fuck what you eat, whether you eat, or how much untouched food you leave on your tray. They are not logging everybody's mealtime performance on some secret touchscreen in the forward galley.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
I've actually heard people respond to revelations like this by saying, "If you're not doing anything wrong, why are you worried about the government having this information?" I then ask "Really? Well, tell me all about your sex life..no?..are you engaging in some perversion?" or "How much money have you got in the bank?...Why won't you tell me? Are you laundering money for drug dealers?" I don't know which is worse, these clowns prying into our lives or our wonderful Congress sitting there and letting them do it. Big Brother is taking over faster than you doublethink.
How does the Govt. having this information help the govt. stop terrorism? Anyone?
Their job is not to stop terrorism, but rather to make people "feel" safer.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
I think the point that highlights why this is all security theater is the note at the way bottom of the record which says Private Jet Travel was not included in the documentation. It seems this is a hole in their security model that will never be plugged.
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Don't feel alone. I'm a US Citizen and I get the rude treatment whenever I want back in. Makes kinda wonder why I want back in so badly.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
A lot of it is also tit-for-tat. You charge us, therefore we'll charge you. Plus if country x does something country y doesn't like they'll sometimes suddenly require visa's like the French did for Australians when the Australians complained about them doing nuclear testing in the South Pacific.
This is what irks me. The government is forbidden to keep databases of this type, so they contract it out (F U Milton Friedmann!) then make their queries against a database that isn't under their direct control. Such a total abuse of the law.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
...And don't think for a minute that the issuing bank doesn't keep records of which accounts were issued to what customers and when.
If you uttered the word "bomber" aloud, in any context whatsoever, while standing in an airport security line, then you're not very bright.
I read all of the none Americans gripping about America and all this procedures. Yet, back in the 70 and 80, Germany, Spain, France, Israel, etc. had issues with terrorists and implemented FAR FAR harsher procedures.
So, are you generally mocking non-Americans for being hypocrites, or are you saying that it's OK for the DHS to be like they are because the Stasi was worse...?