[NYTr] US Wants ALL Air Passengers to Get Permission to Fly to, from or over US

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Register - Oct 13, 2007 via Info Clearing House
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/12/flying_into_data_hell/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18549.htm

US demands air passengers ask its permission to fly

If you're not on the list, you're not getting on

By Wendy M. Grossman

Under new rules proposed by the Transport Security Administration
(TSA),  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.  See PDF files at:
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/ContentViewer?objectId=09000064802ad5b0&disposition=attachment&contentType=pdf

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, IATA,
and the American Society of Travel Agents. The privacy advocates came
from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Identity Project. All
were negative.

The proposals should be withdrawn entirely, argued Edward Hasbrouck,
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 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. ®