[Infowarrior] - Privacy: U.S. Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read

[Richard Forno]

U.S. Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read
By Ryan Singel Email 09.20.07 | 2:00 AM
http://www.wired.com/print/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/09/flight_trackin
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International travelers concerned about being labeled a terrorist or drug
runner by secret Homeland Security algorithms may want to be careful what
books they read on the plane. Newly revealed records show the government is
storing such information for years.

Privacy advocates obtained database records showing that the government
routinely records the race of people pulled aside for extra screening as
they enter the country, along with cursory answers given to U.S. border
inspectors about their purpose in traveling. In one case, the records note
Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore's choice of reading
material, and worry over the number of small flashlights he'd packed for the
trip.

The breadth of the information obtained by the Gilmore-funded Identity
Project (using a Privacy Act request) shows the government's screening
program at the border is actually a "surveillance dragnet," according to the
group's spokesman Bill Scannell.

"There is so much sensitive information in the documents that it is clear
that Homeland Security is not playing straight with the American people,"
Scannell said.

The documents show a tiny slice of the massive airline-record collection
stored by the government, as well as the screening records mined for the
controversial Department of Homeland Security passenger-rating system that
assigns terrorist scores to travelers entering and leaving the country,
including U.S. citizens.

The so-called Automated Targeting System scrutinizes every airline passenger
entering or leaving the country using classified rules that tell agents
which passengers to give extra screening to and which to deny entry or exit
from the country.

The system relies on data ranging from the government's 700,000-name
terrorism watch list to data included in airline-travel database entries,
known as Passenger Name Records, which airlines are required to submit to
the government.

According to government descriptions, ATS mines data from intelligence, law
enforcement and regulatory databases, looking for linkages in order to
identify "high-risk" targets who may not already be on terrorist watchlists.

ATS was started in the late 1990s, but was little known until the government
issued a notice about the system last fall. The government has subsequently
modified the proposed rules for the system, shortening the length of time
data is collected and allowing individuals to request some information used
by the scoring system.

The government stores the PNRs for years and typically includes
destinations, phone and e-mail contact information, meal requests, special
health requests, payment information and frequent-flier numbers.

The Identity Project filed Privacy Act requests for five individuals to see
the data stored on them by the government.

The requests revealed that the PNRs also included information on one
requester's race, the phone numbers of overseas family members given to the
airlines as emergency contact information, and a record of a purely European
flight that had been booked overseas separately from an international
itinerary, according to snippets of the documents shown to Wired News.

The request also revealed the screening system includes inspection notes
from earlier border inspections.

One report about Gilmore notes: "PAX (passenger) has many small flashlights
with pot leaves on them. He had a book entitled 'Drugs and Your Rights.'"
Gilmore is an advocate for marijuana legalization.

Another inspection entry noted that Gilmore had "attended computer
conference in Berlin and then traveled around Europe and Asia to visit
friends. 100% baggage exam negative. Resides 554 Clay Street , San
Francisco, CA. PAX is self employed 'Entrepreneur' in computer software
business."

"They are noting people's race and they are writing down what people read,"
Scannell said.

It doesn't matter that Gilmore was reading a book about drugs, rather than
Catcher in the Rye, according to Scannell. "A book is a book," Scannell
said. "This is just plain wrong."

The documents, which will be posted to an Identity Project website, have
also turned Scannell against the Department of Homeland Security's proposal
for screening airline passengers inside the United States.

That project, known as Secure Flight, will take watchlist screening out of
the hands of airlines, by having the airlines send PNR data to the
government ahead of each flight. While earlier versions included plans to
rate passenger's threat level using data purchased from private companies,
DHS now proposes only to compare data in the PNR against names on the
watchlist, which largely disarmed civil libertarians' opposition to the
program.

That's changed for Scannell now, who sees Secure Flight as just another
version of ATS.

"They want people to get permission to travel," Scannell said. "They already
instituted it for leaving and entering the country and now they want to do
it to visit your Aunt Patty in Cleveland."

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for
comment.