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Canada's Airlines Face a Privacy Dilemma
Interoperable writes "Canada's airlines are caught between a rock and a hard place in the face of new US regulations that require them to collect and hand over personal information about passengers. Handing over information regarding a passenger's name, gender and birth-date may violate Canadian privacy laws but merely flying over American airspace is conditional on doing exactly that. It seems that the long arms of the TSA are eager to grope at Canadians taking a shortcut to Toronto; no doubt to prevent any terrorist attacks on Lake Huron."
.. to do exactly what they say, or suffer?
Now I didn't see this one coming.
So I say ever other country starts finger-printing and frisking Americans just as a matter of policy.
See how long before the state departments starts whining about that.
This is precisely why I won't fly into a US airport. Fuck 'em, you country no longer interests me.
Flying around US airspace between Canadian cities isn't as bad as it looks on a flat 2d projection map. They should probably just avoid any issues and stick to Canadian airspace.
But France must have been in charge at the time as we surrendered without a fight.
Now, I suppose the US could legitimately demand that any flights crossing its territory make a landing, hence subjecting passengers to inspection per Article 9(b-c), but that's only supposed to be available on a temporary basis.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
If we block them they block us and soon we'll be traveling to Alaska via Russia (which I've heard you can see via some of the houses on the coast)
I have a heck of a lot more faith in Canadian airport security than in American airport security! There are some little differences, e.g., we aren't required to take such ridiculous steps as taking our shoes off. But the one biggest difference: our security personnel are calm, collected, and doing their job well.
Case in point: I recently traveled through Philadelphia. Airport security there was a gong show. All of the TSA personnel were in what looked like panic mode -- running around, not standing in one place for more than two seconds, trying to direct a multitude of people and their baggage at once. Contrast this with YVR, YEG, YYC, YYZ, or any of the other Canadian airports I've been through (and for comparison, YYZ is much busier than PHL). All of the personnel at security screenings are standing in one place, directing people in an orderly fashion. Everyone clearly has a single, specific job to do, and they are giving their full attention to doing it.
You can invent all the crazy policies you want about people not standing up for the last hour of a flight, etc. But, one necessary component of security screenings is having well-organized screening areas. When such simple things as that are neglected (for whatever reason), you're doing everything wrong. So I'd think twice before assuming Canadian airport security has much to learn at all from US airport security.
Since we are not allowed to know if even one, single, lone, terrorist attack in the US has been thwarted by these information lists just what can a citizen do? Sending mail to a congressman or voting according to a position on more of this information collection is absurd as we simply are not allowed to have a clue as to whether this tactic works at all. For all I know perhaps this nonsense simply creates jobs that fat cat politicians hand out to their buddies.
Ask any Chinese person in the USA how they got to the US, and they will say thru-Toronto.
Ask any Celebrity how they managed to visit Cuba, they will say thru-Toronto.>
Watching Toronto Airports seems prudent.
Just see if we offer you statehood with an attitude like that!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I think I have a solution. We as Canadians should just reclassify all flights over American air space as Cargo Flights. No passengers to report. It's not like the plane is going to land in the States or they are going to pull over an aircraft for an inspection. Of course in an emergency situation where one does need to land in the states, it will be an unfortunate clerical error that lead the incorrect information to be given to the US.
War Plan Red is Go!!!
Invade Canada!
They would still think it's justified. They are still scared shitless over 9/11 and other evil things that many Americans still think this shit is all a good idea.
My country has a bill that puts limits on handling of my personal data. It was passed because the EU demands that. But it also demands that my bank passes info about my money transactions to USA. It would be pretty difficult to live without bank account and legally impossible to run a business without bank account. My privacy is screwed and I can't even vote to change that - short of convincing EU to challenge US.
We had stories about US demandingdata about air travelers before. Well, you don't have to travel by air. You can use cash and not wire transfers. You can live without internet if you don't want ISP to log who/when you talk to. You can have your privacy - if you live back in the woods. Thanks God, the war on terrorism works so well.
Handing over information regarding a passenger's name, gender and birth-date may violate Canadian privacy laws
What's worse is that the TSA can't even get any of those three facts right in many cases.
Last Name: "Alphabetic, no numeric or special characters, except dash ( - ) and single quote ( ' ). Do not include suffixes (e.g., jr.). Truncate names longer than 35 characters to 35 characters".
First Name: "Secure Flight allows first initial only;" otherwise, same as last name. Honorifics are not to be placed in the name.
Middle Name: same as first name.
So if any of your three names doesn't perfectly fit this convention, you will be hit with a $100 Change fee, including if you don't have a middle name. This is particularily problematic for asian, greek, or many other nationalities whose names include special characters or when translated to english result in a name longer than 35 characters.
Gender: Once again, the TSA fails to account for any manner of diversity in the human population. Anyone who doesn't conform to the gender stereotype fixed to your official documents will be subject to additional (unwanted) attention. I wonder if they'll be offering sensitivity training for the crossdressers, transgendered, butch lesbians, and intersexed amongst us. And god help you if the Driver's Bureau screws up, or you live in a state that won't alter birth records after surgery, or one of a dozen other very real problems.
Birthdate: Did you know a lot of people who immigrate to this country don't know when they were born? In fact, in developing countries, it's quite common for people not to know their actual age. People assume a person's date of birth is a fixed thing -- how could you screw that up? And if you live in this country, you don't have to worry about this anyway. Well, remember that until the mid-90s the Social Security Administration wasn't so on about immediately registering newborns -- and did you know some people choose to have their kids at home? Some people don't get a birth certificate until they're five years old because parents just plain forget -- and for a variety of reasons, sometimes they fudge the actual date. Try getting this changed later -- it's fun.
In short, there's no real security being added here. All of it can be defeated quite easily in any event by putting a gun to the head of your wife, kid, or anything else you don't feel like losing. And as we make these security restrictions increasingly ethnocentric, the terrorists will adapt their strategies accordingly, because the payoff is so damn good! They sucked the US economy of trillions of dollars and all they had to do was crash four passenger planes. We offer the best "bang for the buck", literally and figuratively. It doesn't matter if they make it ten thousand times more difficult and expensive to pull another 9/11 job -- it's still an amazingly good deal for the terrorists.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Canada started using U.S. data a couple of years ago. Sadly Canada this is the downside of our arrangement with you. You don't get just the good part of this arrangement.
Depending on where you live, you already are. I don't see it as a problem, unless the majority (or larger minorities) start into the racism that they blame the "white" man for. Honestly, it's really weird to be one of the few white people in the area. Not for the sake of being the minority, but the racism that can accompany it. For the most part though, people are people, and treat you equally. It's the exceptions that are the problems, and the GP post is one of them.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Speaking as a Canadian...I think we should tell those paranoid xenophobes to go fuck themselves.
Jean Chrétien had a lot of flaws, but at least he had the balls to tell the Americans to stop pushing us around.
If they are concerned about passenger security then they can damn well set up more of those "you're guilty until proven innocent" security-theatre checkpoints on their own soil and search people getting off the plane. Hell, they can even build special security airports at the borders to inspect people's shoes and water bottles.
(Sad to think that would probably be a better use of their funding than most of the stupid crap they've wasted their money on in the last 9 years)
Go ahead and mod me down American nationalist zealots ... I have karma to burn and I'm tired of putting up with America's bullshit.
[/rant]
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
A person with a DUI is not allowed into Canada unless you get a waver. Yeah DUIs are not good things but to be denied access to a country based on that fact?
The US needs to fix a lot of things but Canada is not perfect either.
Unfortunately, our elected leaders don't see the insanity. They don't see that they're doing the terrorist's job more effectively than the terrorists ever imagined. They don't see how many airline and TSA employees are using this as an excuse to lie and steal. They have the right to go through your baggage - but you don't have the right to keep your personal property if they want to take it. Do they have rules and regulations to follow? Don't ask - it's none of your business, citizen. Do these people know how foolish they look? No.
I've taken every opportunity to vote for people who said they would not perpetuate this nonsense - but there doesn't seem to be any way for a simple American citizen to stop this lunacy. I know that I do NOT want to travel on any airline these days - and if I have to, I know not to take a laptop or IPod along - or anything else that the watchers may find suspicious or desirable.
What I'd really like to tell them: Hey, I'm an American citizen - who gave you the right to harass the citizens of this country? But they won't answer and it seems that our so-called representative government is more concerned with preserving and improving the status quo than doing the job they were elected to do.
Sheesh; Bush was a disaster and Obama promised to undo the extremes and provide more transparency. Yeah, right - so Obama lied to us and is following the Bush plan. As a citizen, I'd like to apologize to those in other countries for the behavior of our government. We didn't ask them to act this way and we can't seem to find a way to get them to stop.