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The Identity Project

Category Archives: Freedom To Travel

Sep 08 2017

No US passports for “terrorist sympathizers”?

Bills are moving forward in both houses of Congress which, if approved, would mandate the administrative, extra-judicial revocation, non-renewal, and refusal of issuance of a US passport to any US citizen, even if their citizenship is unquestioned and they have been accused of no crime, but “whom the Secretary [of State] has determined is a member of or is otherwise affiliated with an organization the Secretary has designated as a foreign terrorist organization pursuant to section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1189).”

The proposed legislation would leverage administrative determinations related to immigration (which US courts have allowed to be largely exempted from judicial review insofar as they only affect foreigners who aren’t considered by the US to have the same human rights as US citizens) to impose a categorical ban on certain US citizens leaving or entering the US except at the (standardless, i.e. arbitrary) “discretion” of the Secretary of State.

Since June 1, 2009, US citizens have been forbidden by Federal law and regulations from crossing any border into or out of the US by any means (land, sea, or air) without a passport, passport card, or Federally-approved “enhanced” drivers license. Denial of a passport thus amounts to a categorical ban on leaving or returning to the US. As such,  it is a blatant violation of the rights of US citizens pursuant to the First Amendment “right of the people… peaceably to assemble” and their human rights pursuant to Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

2. Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own….

4. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.

The proposed law would not define how, on what basis, according to what procedures, or using what standard of proof the Secretary of State would make determinations as to membership or other “affiliation” of a US citizen with a blacklisted organization.  To make matters worse, the bills proposing this travel ban for US citizens associated with blacklisted organizations contain no definition of “member” or “otherwise affiliated”.

If you don’t like the decision of the Secretary of State, the bill would provide you with a “Right of Review” entitling you to a hearing before … the  Secretary of State.

Substitute “Communist” for “terrorist” in the proposed legislation, and it becomes clear that these bills would recreate the worst of the guilt-by-association witch-hunting of the MyCarthyist and other Red Scares.

Commie sympathizer? No passport for you! Terrorist symp? No passport for you!

Read More →

Aug 01 2017

Biometric entry/exit tracking of US citizens

We were invited to a briefing session today at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) headquarters: “an information sharing session and open dialog …  with external privacy stakeholders” to discuss “recent enhancements to CBP’s biometric exit initiatives” and “CBP’s implementation plans for a biometric exit system“.

Although we weren’t able  to make it to Washington for today’s meeting, we have many questions about CBP’s ongoing (and illegal, as discussed below)  photographing of the faces of US citizens entering the US, and the agency’s plans to expand the current (also illegal) trials of exit photography to include most or all US citizens leaving the country.

We look forward to another chance to quiz CBP officials about these programs and their (lack of) legal basis. More importantly, we hope that members of Congress and the public will ask hard questions about these programs if regulations or legislation are proposed that would purport to authorize them.

We share the general concerns raised by others about the use of biometric information such as facial photos (mug shots) for suspicionless dragnet surveillance of any travelers. The right to leave any country is explicitly guaranteed by international treaty (Article 12 of the ICCPR) as a human right independent of citizenship.

But we find it especially objectionable — and likely to be illegal — that CBP is extending these surveillance schemes to US citizens. Here are some of the issues: Read More →

Jul 20 2017

Fact-checking the FAQs on ID to fly

In May and June of 2017, several new FAQs about “requirements” for travel on common-carrier airlines were posted on TSA.gov and DHS.gov:

Statements about current and future ID “requirements” similar to those on these websites have also appeared on official signs in some airports.

It should go without saying that neither government websites nor informational signs in airports create legal rights or obligations or can be relied on as authoritative statements of the law.

Federal law is contained in the US Constitution, international treaties duly ratified by the US in accordance with the US Constitution, the US Code, and US Public Laws. Federal regulations are contained in the Code of Federal Regulations. The Freedom of Information Act requires that binding Federal agency rules, regulations, and orders of general applicability be published in the Federal Register.

If you want to know what the law says, you need to read the law, not press releases from government agencies or anyone else (including us!).

This is especially important with respect to the TSA, since the TSA website and TSA signs in airports have for years included statements about ID requirements to fly that have been disclaimed by TSA witnesses testifying under oath and by TSA lawyers arguing before Federal courts.

So what is the TSA saying now about ID to fly? Is it true? And is it legal?

The TSA’s latest public statements are more accurate than some of the agency’s previous press releases about ID to fly, and may (although we can’t really tell, given the absence of fomal proposals or published rules) accurately describe the changes the TSA intends to implement. But major questions remain about the legality of both current and possible future ID practices at TSA and contractor checkpoints at US airports.

Read More →

Jul 16 2017

CBP is taking mug shots of US citizens who leave the country

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has expanded its photography of the faces of all non-US citizens entering or leaving the US (under the “US-VISIT” program) to add mug shots of US citizens leaving the country, starting with all passengers on a daily flight on United Airlines from Washington Dulles Airport (IAD) to Dubai, U.A.E. (DXB).

This exit photo scheme is part of a larger program of biometric traveler tracking for which CBP and DHS recently opened an entire new database management and airport procedures simulation facility.

US citizens have the legal right not to submit to this mass surveillance and travel control scheme. But as with your right to fly without ID, CBP notices at airports won’t tell you that. You need to know your rights and be prepared to assert them.

Read More →

May 23 2017

TSA reveals that “Naked American Hero” John Brennan wasn’t alone

Last week three judges of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the TSA’s administrative decision to fine “Naked American Hero” John Brennan $500 for taking off all his clothes to protest TSA’s practices and to show that he wasn’t hiding any explosives under his clothes despite a false-positive result from a TSA swab test for residue of explosives.

At the same time, the TSA revealed that Mr. Brennan was not alone: At least two other air travelers have been fined in  recent years for taking off all their clothes in response to TSA demands that they submit to “pat-down” searches for weapons and explosives.

The judges on the 9th Circuit panel claimed not to believe that viewers would understand Mr. Brennan’s symbolic speech — notwithstanding the public reaction that made clear that Mr. Brennan’s expressive intent and message were perfectly clear to those who heard about what he had done. According to thre court’s “unbpublished” (it;s actually public, but can’t be cited as precednt in future cases) opinion:

Brennan’s core contention is that stripping naked in the middle of a TSA checkpoint is expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment. But Brennan fails to carry his burden of showing that a viewer would have understood his stripping naked to be communicative. Therefore, his conduct is not protected by the First Amendment.

The TSA fine was based on the claim that Mr. Brennan “interfered” with TSA screening because the TSA stopped screening him in order to stare at, or perhaps in order to avert their eyes from, Mr. Brennan’s naked body, or diverted their attention to trying to shield other travelers from sight of him.

But the TSA never claimed that Mr. Brennan’s nakedness violated any Federal law or regulation, and the local courts dismissed the criminal charges brought against him under state and municipal law on the grounds that his nakedness was, in the circumstances, protected by Oregon law. Mr. Brennan could legally have shown up at the TSA checkpoint already naked, and the duty of the TSA would have been to allow him to proceed unless “screening” showed him to be a threat to aviation security.

TSA staff and contractors are often distracted from their duties by the appearance of the travelers they are inspecting and groping. But that’s not a lawful basis for sanctions against those travelers. Mr. Brennan is not responsible for the decision of the TSA staff to stop doing their job because of what he looked like or how he was (legally) dressed or undressed.

The court found that the TSA rule against “interfence” isn’t unconstitutionally vague, even as applied to Mr. Brennan’s entirely peaceful and nonviolent conduct:

We have long recognized that “‘interfere’ has such a clear, specific and well-known meaning as not to require more than the use of the word[] . . . in a criminal statute.” In other words, the word has a “settled legal meaning[].” And courts have often defined and applied it, but never in a way that would lead a person of ordinary intelligence to think that he or she could strip naked at a TSA checkpoint and refuse to get dressed, leading to the closure of the checkpoint.

The court’s error, of course, is the mistaken claim that it was Mr. Brennan’s actions, rather than the choice of the TSA to abandon their duties and refuse either to screen a naked man or allow him to proceed once they could see he had no concealed weapons, that “led to” the closure of the checkpoint.

The 9th Circuit was the first (and only) court to review the Constitutionality of the TSA’s administrative fine of Mr. Brennan. TSA administrative decision-makers are forbidden from considering whether the regulations, policies, and practices they enforce are legal or Constitutional.

Brennan v. TSA and DHS was fully briefed before the 9th Circuit two years ago. Earlier this year, after a long silence, the court scheduled oral argument, which was to have been held earlier this month in Portland. Then, on its own initiative and without explanation, the court cancelled the scheduled oral argument, and decided the case a few days later on the written arguments. Our best guess is that one of the three judges on the panel had questions about a draft opinion, but was persuaded or decide to withdraw them.

Mr. Brennan discussed his original protest and his thoughts on the 9th Circuit decision in a lengthy interview with Portland TV station KGW. Some excerpts:

Read More →

Apr 27 2017

Is the TSA checking domestic airline passengers for warrants?

[Entities and data flows involved in decision-making (“vetting”) about travelers. Larger image, PDF with legend.]

The latest annual report on data-mining by the Department of Homeland Security contains a disturbing hint that the TSA may have gotten the ability to include checks for warrants and police “wants” in its “vetting” of passengers on domestic airline flights.

This would turn airline check-in counters and kiosks and TSA checkpoints for domestic air travel into dragnet suspicionless warrant checkpoints.

According to page 16 (page 19 of the PDF) of the newly-released 2016 DHS Data Mining Report, “An annex to this report containing Sensitive Security Information (SSI) about Secure Flight’s use of ATS-P is being provided separately to the Congress.”

What data from ATS, to which the TSA didn’t already have independent access,  is being used by the TSA as part of Secure Flight? For what purpose?

In the diagram above (larger image, PDF with legend), the solid green line shows the transfer of data from the FBI’s “National Criminal Information System” (NCIC) criminal history database to CBP’s “Automated Targeting System” (ATS) for use in “vetting” international airline passengers. The dashed green line shows the newly-disclosed transfer of ATS data to the “Secure Flight” system used by the TSA to “vet” domestic airline passengers. This could allow the TSA to check all domestic airline passengers for warrants and “wants” listed in NCIC, as CBP already has the ability to dos for all international airline passengers on flights to or from the US.

There is no explicit mention in the public portion of the DHS report of TSA use of NCIC data for decision-making (“vetting”) about domestic air travelers. But as the diagram above shows, almost all of the other data contained in ATS is already available directly to the TSA for use in Secure Flight. It’s not clear what data from ATS, other than criminal history data imported to ATS from NCIC, the TSA doesn’t already obtain directly without needing to get it from ATS.

Records of arrest warrants in NCIC are often inaccurate, as we have noted before. It’s especially common for the issuance of a warrant to be reported to the FBI for inclusion in NCIC, but for the later cancellation of that warrant not to be reported to NCIC. NCIC contains hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of listings for warrants that are no longer valid. Using TSA “vetting” of domestic airline passengers as a suspicionless dragnet for “wanted” individuals would inevitably result in the detention and arrest of many innocent people at TSA checkpoints on the basis of inaccurate NCIC data.

Normally, warrant checks are permissible only on the basis of reasonable articulable suspicion that a person has committed a crime. The current CBP checks of international travelers for warrants, police “wants”, and investigative “lookouts” have been permitted only as part of a judicially-created border exception to the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. There is no comparable “airport exception” to the 4th Amendment that would allow suspicionless dragnet warrant checks on domestic travelers by the TSA. Travel is not an inherently suspicious activity. It’s the exercise of a Constitutional and human right, and cannot in itself be the basis for warrant checks.

Members of Congress should look closely at the secret annex to the 2016 DHS Data Mining Report, and question the DHS and TSA as to whether they are using, or intend to use, data obtained from NCIC (directly or indirectly through ATS or otherwise) to conduct warrant checks on domestic air travelers.

If any of our readers has information about someone being identified for arrest on an outstanding warrant (valid or invalid) on the basis of TSA “screening”, rather than on the basis of an independent police warrant check based on reasonable suspicion, please let us know.

Apr 21 2017

“Stand up to the corrupt Real ID Act”

[Guest commentary by Rep. Chris Tuck, Majority Leader in the Alaska House of Representatives, published in the Alaska Dispatch News, Fairbanks News-Miner, Juneau Empire, Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, and Alaska Journal of Commerce]

I am disappointed that the Administration of [Alaska Governor] Walker has given in to the fear tactics and misinformation of the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration by putting forth legislation to make Alaska implement the Federal REAL ID Act and pay for it ourselves. It is my duty to set the record straight and make sure people have the facts they need to defend their rights.

The Department of Administration has been reporting that if we do not agree to comply with REAL ID we will not be allowed to use our state IDs to get through TSA checkpoints or to get on base. In reality there is no existing or proposed federal law or regulation requiring ID to travel at all.

A recent reply to a four-year-old Freedom of Information Act request to the DHS has shown that 77,000 people per year fly without ID, and only 2 percent who try are ever turned away. Not only that, it is the Pentagon and individual base commanders who decide what ID is required to get on base.

The Department of Homeland Security does not have authority over the Pentagon. That is why the DHS instead uses fear tactics and misinformation to try and force REAL ID on the states.

Read More →

Apr 14 2017

U.S. citizen stranded in South America without a passport

Imagine that you’re a U.S. citizen. You were born in the USA. You’ve never been a citizen of any other country, and you have no birthright to any other citizenship.

Now imagine that you are abroad long enough that your passport begins to approach its expiration date. Naturally, you apply to renew it, leaving plenty of time. You have to surrender your old passport with the renewal application, but of course you expect to get your new passport shortly.

Now try to imagine that the State Department puts your passport renewal application into limbo — for almost three years (and still counting). Your application for a new passport is neither granted nor denied, so there is no explicit “decision” to appeal administratively or challenge in court.

Without a passport, you are trapped in whatever country you happened to be in when you applied to renew your passport. No other country is likely to let you in without a passport, nor will any airline let you on an international flight without a passport — not even to return to the USA.

If your visa or permission to remain in that country as a foreigner expires, or if you get into any situation in which you are you are required to show your passport, you are liable to be arrested and thrown into detention or deportation proceedings.

You keep going back to the U.S. Consulate to find out what is happening with your passport application. They tell you they don’t know. They suggest that you go to the end of the line by withdrawing your still-pending application, and starting over — putting your new application at the back of the years-long queue.

Eventually they get tired of putting you off, and order you — a native born sole U.S. citizen — to leave the U.S. Consulate, and not to darken their door again under pain of arrest. Arrest for what violation of what country’s laws, they don’t say.

You try to find a lawyer to hire, but this is outside the expertise or experience of any U.S. lawyer, and none wants to take on your case.

Is this a realistic scenario? Yes.

We’ve heard from more than one person in this situation — and not just the Yemeni-Americans we wrote about a few years ago.

Meet Daniel Bruno, man without a passport:

I was born in Manhattan…. I have a birth certificate…

In May of 2014, I walked into the US Embassy in Buenos Aires with my perfectly valid US passport that was due to expire in six months. I filled out the renewal forms, paid the fees, was interviewed and dismissed by Vice Consul Creaghe. I never had a US passport again because they would not renew it.There is, of course, much more to this story,… but the bottom line is that according to them, Americans have no right to a passport, no right to a nationality document and no right to return to the US… and I know this is illegal.

BTW, let me mention that I’m not wanted for a crime, back taxes, child support, etc….

I am actively seeking constitutional and civil rights lawyers who want to help me defend the rights of all of us.

We’ve met Daniel Bruno in person, and all of the documentation we’ve seen — both from him and from the State Department in response to a Privacy Act and FOIA request we helped him file — supports his account of his bureaucratic ordeal. (The State Department has provided only a partial response, which does not yet include any of the records from the consulate in Buenos Aires.) Is Mr. Bruno now an expatriate? Or has he been effectively exiled by the USA?

We aren’t able to represent Mr. Bruno. But if you are, or you know a lawyer who is, we’ll be happy to put you in touch.

Apr 13 2017

Yes, you can fly without ID

On average, 77,000 people each year — more than 200 a day — pass through TSA checkpoints to board airline flights in the USA without showing ID.

Ninety-eight percent of the would-be travelers who show up at TSA checkpoints without ID are allowed to board their flights. Only two percent are turned back.

The average time spent by the TSA “Identify Verification Call Center” in questioning each traveler without ID has been between seven and nine minutes.

Show up at the airport with no ID (or with ID that isn’t considered “acceptable” by the TSA), and there’s a 98% chance that you will be allowed to fly without ID, after an average of 7-9 minutes of additional questioning and a pat-down (which you would have gotten anyway if you didn’t consent to “virtual strip search” imaging) and search of your carry-on bags.

All this is according to internal TSA logs and summary reports on each person who tried to fly from 2008 (when the TSA started using its current procedures and form for people who fly without ID) through 2011. These reports were finally released to us, after four years of TSA foot-dragging, in response to a Freedom Of Information Act request we made in 2013.

So much for the false claims the TSA, the DHS, and their collaborators at state licensing agencies are making that people who live in states that don’t comply with the REAL-ID Act won’t be allowed to fly without “acceptable” ID.

It doesn’t matter whether your ID is “compliant” or “acceptable”. You can fly with no ID at all, and hundreds of people do so every day after what is typically only a brief delay.

Over the years, we have received a trickle of incident narratives, which have been helpful in understanding how the TSA deals with people who show up without ID and what data the TSA uses to make judgments about travelers. But these narratives are for exceptional incidents in which travelers were not quickly “verified” and allowed to proceed. The annual summaries (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011) were only released as the 14th and last batch of responses to our request. (The TSA illegally substituted PDF files of page images for the original spreadsheet or table files, making them much larger files and harder to tabulate. We will be appealing the TSA’s substitution of less-useful newly-created files for the originals, and failure to produce the files in their original format as we requested.)

We remain concerned, of course, about the 2% of would-be fliers without ID who are wrongly prevented from exercising their right to travel by air. The percentage is small (again, just 2% of the people who show up at TSA checkpoints with no ID or without “acceptable” ID), but it still comes to more than 1500 people a year, throughout the USA, whose rights are violated. States should not only say “no” to compliance with the REAL-ID Act, but start preparing now to defend their residents’ freedom of travel and to ask Federal courts to enjoin the DHS and TSA from any interference with that right.

Mar 21 2017

Alaska and the REAL-ID Act

We’ll be testifying (by teleconference) at hearings today in the Senate State Affairs Committee (3:30 p.m. ADT) and House State Affairs Committee (5:30 p.m. ADT) of the Alaska State Legislature on three state bills related to Alaska’s response to the Federal REAL-ID Act of 2005:

  1. SB34: Implementation of the federal REAL ID Act of 2005
  2. HB74: Implementation of the federal REAL ID Act of 2005
  3. HJR15: Encouraging repeal of the REAL ID Act of 2005

In 2008, shortly before the REAL-ID Act was scheduled to take effect (the DHS has repeatedly postponed that discretionary “deadline” as politically and practically unfeasible, most recently until 2020) the Alaska State Legislature enacted a state law prohibiting any state spending to implement the REAL-ID Act.

Now, in respond to Federal threats to interfere with Alaskan residents’ freedom of movement if the state government doesn’t upload information about all state license and ID-card holders to a national ID database, the state legislature is considering bills to authorize that spending and implementation.

It makes no sense for Alaska to call for repeal of a disliked Federal law of dubious Constitutionality, and simultaneously to authorize state spending to comply with that law, without first getting the courts to rule on whether the (unfunded) mandate for state action or the threatened sanctions against state residents are Constitutional.

As we say today in our written testimony to members of the House and Senate State Affairs Committees:

Alaska HJR15 is an important statement of support by the Alaska State Legislature for efforts in Congress to repeal the REAL-ID Act. But Alaskans and the State of Alaska cannot, and should not, merely sit back and wait for Congress to act.

No Federal law or regulations requires air travelers to show any ID. People fly without ID every day. But the TSA has indicated that it intends to propose regulations, revise TSA Standard Operating Procedures, and/or issue Security Directives to air carriers to require air travelers to show ID acceptable to the DHS in order to fly.

This threat poses a special danger to Alaskan residents, especially those in communities and locations not connected to the North American road network, and/or who rely on air transportation for access to essential and emergency services.

Unless and until this threat is withdrawn, Alaskan state authorities including the office of the Attorney General of Alaska should be preparing to defend any Alaska residents whose rights are interfered with by Federal agents.

And rather than waiting to intervene until after Federal agents start denying Alaska residents access to essential air transportation, the state should, as soon as it is ripe for adjudication, initiate litigation to prevent interference with residents’ rights.

It makes no sense for your state to capitulate, as these bills would have it do, in response to threats of Federal action action whose Constitutionality has yet to be tested.

It would be premature for Alaska to abandon its long-standing and well-founded opposition to the REAL-ID Act in response to DHS threats to interfere with the rights of state residents as a sanction for state noncompliance with the REAL-ID Act, while:

  1. A Federal ID credential, a passport card, is available to any U.S. citizen who qualifies for a REAL-ID compliant state ID, and can be used for any purpose for which a compliant state ID can be used as well as for surface travel to Canada;
  2. Legislation to repeal the REAL-ID Act or significantly mitigate the dangers of creating an uncontrolled national ID database is pending in Congress;
  3. No Federal statute or regulation requires air travelers to show any ID to fly, and residents of Alaska and other states continue to fly every day without ID;
  4. No regulations have been proposed that would require anyone to show ID to fly;
  5. No court has considered whether it would be Constitutional to require air travelers or passengers of other common carriers to show ID;
  6. Compliance with the REAL-ID Act would create special problems for Alaskan residents, especially residents of communities not accessible by road;
  7. The lack of alternatives to air transport gives Alaska a uniquely strong legal basis to challenge any Federal attempt to impose an ID requirement for air travel;
  8. More populous states that are manifestly not in compliance with the statutory criteria for REAL-ID Act database access have not been similarly threatened; and
  9. No court has ruled on the legality of the DHS arbitrarily exercising “discretion” to restrict the rights of residents of some noncompliant states but not others.

We urge the Alaska State Legislature to reject SB34 and HB74, stand firm in your opposition to the REAL-ID Act, and prepare to defend the Constitutional rights of Alaskans and all Americans to freedom of travel and movement, including by air.