Delta Air Lines Sued Over Alleged E-mail Hacking

alphadogg writes "Delta Air Lines is being sued for allegedly hacking the e-mail account of a passenger rights advocate supporting legislation that would allow access to food, water and toilets during long delays on the tarmac. Kathleen Hanni, executive director of Flyersrights.org, alleges Delta obtained sensitive e-mails and files and used the material in an attempt to derail the 'Airline Passenger's Bill of Rights of 2009,' of which four versions are pending before Congress. The suit was filed on Tuesday in US District Court for the Southern District of Texas and seeks a minimum of $11 million in damages. Flyersrights.org, a nonprofit organization founded in 2007, had been investigating surface delays in air travel."

Comments

Back to the future

[AHuxley]

Thinking back to Nader v. General Motors Corp., 307 N.Y.S.2d 647 (N.Y. 1970) and overzealous surveillance.
Larger corps have a few game plans:
1. Pay off and you stop.
2. Discredit with a "past", real, hyped or almost created.
3. Useless busy work via infiltration and re directing. Or a personality implosion of the groups eg COINTELPRO.

A fishing expedition? Looking for leaks, press contacts and members.
The planting of logger.

Air vs. Rail

[Rei]

My parents are bringing our whole family to Cimarron, NM for Christmas, and already booked flights. To get there, I'm going to have to leave my home in the middle of the day and drive 25 miles to the airport. I'll have to get there an hour early and go through an intrusive security check. They'll also make me pay more for my bags at the airport. I'll then have to walk to the gate and wait there, then board in a line, then settle into my cramped seat and wait on the tarmac. I'll have to keep my electronics off until we reach cruising altitude. We'll then have to fly to the hub in Chicago, doing all of the previous stuff in reverse for landing and disembarkment, layover, and re-boarding. We'll then fly to Amarillo and do everything in reverse. I'll be landing in Amarillo after dark. Then I'll have to get a hotel because it'll be too late to reach Cimarron. So the next day I'll then be renting a car and driving 250 miles to Cimarron (no sizable airports near it) and get there in the afternoon. On the return trip, all of this will happen in reverse.

Well, I decided to check, and sure enough, there's an Amtrak stop 85 miles from my house and another 40 miles from Cimarron, with a direct line between them. So instead, I could leave my house at shortly before 6 in the evening, get on a train at around 7:30 with almost no waiting at the station, settle into whatever comfortable seat I want (I find rail travel to be *much* more comfortable than air travel), have a power outlet for my laptop, recline way back and sleep from 11 to 9 AM, get off at 11:30 AM, and get to Cimarron just after noon. With all costs added in, significantly cheaper, way more comfortable, saves six hours of driving, no hellish airport experiences, and faster. And way less environmental impact.

This may be an extreme case, but most people don't ever bother thinking to check to see whether a train can get them to their destination reasonably. A lot of people use the argument that as a less population-dense country, the US can't support rail. Well, population density arguments apply to *every* mode of public transportation, including air. Less population dense areas means fewer airports and fewer flights.

I loved riding the rails around Japan. Back in the US, get the speeds up and add more tracks, and at least I personally will ride them most places I go.