[Infowarrior] - Bush orders clampdown on flights to US

[Richard Forno]

Bush orders clampdown on flights to US

EU officials furious as Washington says it wants extra data on all air
passengers

    * Ian Traynor in Brussels
    * The Guardian,
    * Monday February 11 2008
   
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/11/usa.theairlineindustry

This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday February 11 2008 on p1 of
the Top stories section. It was last updated at 13:53 on February 11 2008.
Jet aeroplane taking off at night

Bush administration is calling for armed air marshals on transatlantic
flights. Photograph: Eric Meola/Getty Images

The US administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union
to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel,
including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US
airlines.

The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel
clampdown by the Bush administration that officials in Brussels described as
"blackmail" and "troublesome", and could see west Europeans and Britons
required to have US visas if their governments balk at Washington's
requirements.

According to a US document being circulated for signature in European
capitals, EU states would also need to supply personal data on all air
passengers overflying but not landing in the US in order to gain or retain
visa-free travel to America, senior EU officials said.

And within months the US department of homeland security is to impose a new
permit system for Europeans flying to the US, compelling all travellers to
apply online for permission to enter the country before booking or buying a
ticket, a procedure that will take several days.

The data from the US's new electronic transport authorisation system is to
be combined with extensive personal passenger details already being provided
by EU countries to the US for the "profiling" of potential terrorists and
assessment of other security risks.

Washington is also asking European airlines to provide personal data on
non-travellers - for example family members - who are allowed beyond
departure barriers to help elderly, young or ill passengers to board
aircraft flying to America, a demand the airlines reject as "absurd".

Seven demands tabled by Washington are contained in a 10-page "memorandum of
understanding" (MOU) that the US authorities are negotiating or planning to
negotiate with all EU governments, according to ministers and diplomats from
EU member states and senior officials in Brussels. The Americans have
launched their security drive with some of the 12 mainly east European EU
countries whose citizens still need visas to enter the US.

"The Americans are trying to get a beefing up of their visa-waiver
programmes. It's all contained in the MOU they want to put to all EU member
states," said a diplomat from a west European country. "It's a very delicate
problem."

As part of a controversial passenger data exchange programme allegedly aimed
at combating terrorism, the EU has for the past few months been supplying
the American authorities with 19 items of information on every traveller
flying from the EU to the US.

The new American demands go well beyond what was agreed under that passenger
name record (PNR) system and look certain to cause disputes within Europe
and between Europe and the US.

Brussels is pressing European governments not to sign the bilateral deals
with the Americans to avoid weakening the EU bargaining position. But
Washington appears close to striking accords on the new travel regime with
Greece and the Czech Republic. Both countries have sizeable diaspora
communities in America, while their citizens need visas to enter the US.
Visa-free travel would be popular in both countries.

A senior EU official said the Americans could get "a gung-ho frontrunner" to
sign up to the new regime and then use that agreement "as a rod to beat the
other member states with". The frontrunner appears to be the Czech Republic.
On Wednesday, Richard Barth of the department of homeland security was in
Prague to negotiate with the Czech deputy prime minister, Alexandr Vondra,

Prague hoped to sign the US memorandum "in the spring", Vondra said. "The EU
has done nothing for us on visas," he said. "There was no help, no
solidarity in the past. It's in our interest to move ahead. We can't just
wait and do nothing. We have to act in the interest of our citizens."

While the Czechs are in a hurry to sign up, Brussels is urging delay in
order to try to reach a common European position.

"There is a process of consultation and coordination under way," said
Jonathan Faull, a senior European commission official involved in the
negotiations with the Americans.

To European ears, the US demands sound draconian. "This would oblige the
European countries to allow US air marshals on US flights. It's
controversial and difficult," an EU official said. At the moment the use of
air marshals is discretionary for European states and airlines.

While armed American guards would be entitled to sit on the European flights
to the US, the Americans also want the PNR data transfers extended from
travellers from Europe to the US to include the details of those whose
flights are not to America, but which overfly US territory, say to central
America or the Caribbean.

Brussels has told Washington that its demands raise legal problems in Europe
over data protection, over guarantees on how the information is handled,
over which US agencies have access to it or with whom it might be shared,
and over issues of redress if the data is misused.

The Association of European Airlines, representing 31 airlines, including
all the big west European national carriers, has told the US authorities
that there is "no international legal foundation" for supplying them with
data about passengers on flights overflying US territory.

The US Transport Security Administration has also asked the European
airlines to supply personal data on "certain non-travelling members of the
public requesting access to areas beyond the screening checkpoint".

The AEA said this was "absurd" because the airlines neither obtain nor can
obtain such information. The request was "fully unjustified".

If the Americans persevere in the proposed security crackdown, Brussels is
likely to respond with tit-for-tat action, such as calling for visas for
some Americans.

European governments, however, would probably veto such action, one official
said, not least for fear of the "massive disruption given the huge volume of
transatlantic traffic".