FBI enlists reservation services to spy on travelers
[The role of CRSs in the travel data ecosystem and government access to airline data. Slide from Identity Project presentation on C-SPAN, April 2, 2013.]
A report by Thomas Brewster published yesterday by Forbes discloses that the FBI has used court orders issued under the “All Writs Act” (AWA) to order operators of computerized reservation systems (CRSs) to provide weekly reports on any new reservations made by specified persons of interest, for periods of as long as six months at a time.
The article in Forbes includes a copy of one of these orders issued to Sabre, which mentions, by way of legal precedents, some other such orders issued to Sabre:
Forbes also describes a similar All-Writs Act order issued to Travelport, another of the three major CRS operators.
Who are these CRSs? What are we to make of these court orders? And is there anything really surprising about the newly-revealed All Writs Act orders to Sabre and Travelport?
This report in Forbes and these orders aren’t a surprise, but they do provide positive confirmation of (previously suspected) facts about US government activities and US law that may be of considerable significance to challenges to travel surveillance under the laws of other countries including the European Union, Canada, and possibly others.