[Infowarrior] - US demands air passengers ask its permission to fly

[Richard Forno]

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/12/flying_into_data_hell/
US demands air passengers ask its permission to fly
By Wendy M. Grossman
Published Friday 12th October 2007 13:18 GMT

Under new rules proposed by the Transport Security Administration (TSA)
(http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/ContentViewer?objectId=09000064802ad5
b0&disposition=attachment&contentType=pdf) (pdf), all airline passengers
would need advance permission before flying into, through, or over the
United States regardless of citizenship or the airline's national origin.

Currently, the Advanced Passenger Information System, operated by the
Customs and Border Patrol, requires airlines to forward a list of passenger
information no later than 15 minutes before flights from the US take off
(international flights bound for the US have until 15 minutes after
take-off). Planes are diverted if a passenger on board is on the no-fly
list.

The new rules mean this information must be submitted 72 hours before
departure. Only those given clearance will get a boarding pass. The TSA
estimates that 90 to 93 per cent of all travel reservations are final by
then.

The proposed rules require the following information for each passenger:
full name, sex, date of birth, and redress number (assigned to passengers
who use the Travel Redress Inquiry Program because they have been mistakenly
placed on the no-fly list), and known traveller number (once there is a
programme in place for registering known travellers whose backgrounds have
been checked). Non-travellers entering secure areas, such as parents
escorting children, will also need clearance.

The TSA held a public hearing in Washington DC on 20 September, which heard
comments from both privacy advocates and airline industry representatives
from Qantas, the Regional Airline Association (http://www.raa.org), IATA
(http://www.iata.org), and the American Society of Travel Agents
(http://www.asta.org). The privacy advocates came from the American Civil
Liberties Union (http://www.aclu.org) and the Identity Project
(http://www.papersplease.org). All were negative.

The proposals should be withdrawn entirely, argued Edward Hasbrouck
(http://www.hasbrouck.org), author of The Practical Nomad and the leading
expert on travel data privacy. "Obscured by the euphemistic language of
'screening' is the fact that travellers would be required to get permission
before they can travel."

Hasbrouck submitted that requiring clearance in order to travel violates the
US First Amendment right of assembly, the central claim in John Gilmore's
(http://www.toad.com/gnu/) case against the US government over the
requirement to show photo ID for domestic travel.

In addition, the TSA is required to study the impact of the proposals on
small economic entities (such as sole traders). Finally, the TSA provides no
way for individuals to tell whether their government-issued ID is actually
required by law, opening the way for rampant identity theft.

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 airline industry representatives' objections were largely logistical.
They argued that the 60-day timeframe the TSA proposes to allow for
implementation from the publication date of the final rules is much too
short. They want a year to revamp many IT systems, especially, as the Qantas
representative said, as no one will start until they're sure there will be
no further changes.

In addition, many were concerned about the impact on new, convenient and
cash-saving technologies, such as checking in at home, or storing a boarding
pass in a PDA.

One additional point, also raised by Hasbrouck: the data the TSA requires
will be collected by the airlines who presumably will keep it for their own
purposes ­ a "government-coerced informational windfall", he called it.

The third parties who actually do much of the airline industry's data
processing, the Global Distribution Systems and Computer Reservations
Systems, were missing from the hearing. ®