Ante On Private Data Increases Again

The Guardian broke the story that Bush is demanding even more data from Airlines from Europe. The data demands include more information on passengers to the United States, passengers on planes flying over the United States, non-passengers who accompany children, the ill, and the disabled to the gate. The administration is also demanding armed U.S. air marshals on all flights to the U.S. As you might expect, the new demands are being responded to with outrage.

The nations of the European Union are already cooperating with the U.S. by providing data on all passengers as part of the Passenger Name Record (PNR). The 2004 agreement between the U.S. and EU which collected sensitive personal data, was declared illegal by the European Court of Justice in 2006. A new PNR agreement was reached in 2007. This agreement prompted a protest from the AFL-CIO because union membership was among the data demanded by the U.S. (which raises issues regarding what data the Department of Homeland Security considers important to identify "terrorists").

The new demands on flights originating in the European Union are considered "draconian" and "impossible" (Guardian, 2/11/08). Certainly if the much more limited PNR was ruled illegal, then this one is certainly over the top. However, individual countries may choose to break from the EU position to avoid disruption of passenger travel to the U.S. (or other sanctions applied by the U.S.).

The current demand was apparently part of an appropriations bill for the Customs and Border Patrol and run out of the Transportation Security Administration - both of which reside under the Department of Homeland Security.

In the name of "the war on terrorism," we seem to return again and again to a remake of the Total Information Awareness Systems (TIAS) - see the DARPA description. While TIAS was defunded, it has appeared piecemeal all over the place: the FutureMap through the NSA, the MATRIX criminal database, and the CAPPS II program under the TSA. Then in 2005, the Department of Homeland Security instituted its own datamining program. A program that has apparently grown significantly with the demands now placed on the EU.

I had little lick in trying to track down the authorization upon which this new "agreement" is based beyond appropriations for DHS. I have to wonder if that appropriation offered any details of what was going on. I suspect not, or at least nothing that was obvious. Given that there was apparently no specific Congressional approval of extended data collection demands and datamining, I have to wonder what other types of programs are also being run and extended.

The expanded demands on the EU truly do seem to push the boundaries of credibility. They include a pre-screening of passengers by the United States before tickets are purchased. Then there is additional data on passengers obtaining tickets. Non-passengers must also have their dated collected which at the very least would be very time consuming and likely resisted as invasive. Further, passengers on flights that are not destined for the United States, but whose flight paths might cross U.S. territory must face the same screening as if they were bound for the United States. All of this data would then be datamined against U.S. held lists.

Now, if this is the data being collected from outside the United States, just what is being collected on those inside the U.S. - and by whom?

For Further Information
Bush orders clampdown on flights to US. Traynor. Guardian. 2/11/08.

What's in a Passenger Name Record (PNR)? Edward Hasbrouck. The Practical Nomad.

Fact Sheet: US-EU Passenger Name Record Agreement Signed. Department of Homeland Security. 5/28/04.

Observatory on the exchange of data on passengers (PNR) with USA. Links to documents and agreements on U.S. - E.U. PNR data.

AGREEMENT between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data by air carriers to the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (2007 PNR Agreement). Text of the agreement as published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

AFL-CIO letter to DHS Michael Chertoff

TSA's Secure Flight program suspended. Associated Press. 2/09/06.

Secure Flight Program. Transportation Security Administration. 9/20/2007.

TIA Lives. Wolf. Uncommon Thought Journal. 1/27/06.