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The Identity Project

Category Archives: Freedom To Travel

Feb 20 2009

“Homeland Security USA” shows how to travel without ID

The new “reality” television show Homeland Security USA has prompted a Facebook group calling for it to be taken off the air, and protests against its bigotry outside the ABC-TV / Walt Disney Corp. offices in Burbank, even while ratings and viewership have been falling steadily since the first episode.

This week, though, the show gave us a useful lesson: how to fly (within the U.S.) without showing ID.

You can watch Benjamin fly without showing ID in the first half of Episode 5 here on the ABC.com website. (The player won’t work unless it thinks you are running Windows XP or Vista, but it’s possible — sometimes — to get it to work in Linux by using the Windows version of Firefox in the “wine” environment.) Read More →

Feb 11 2009

ID checks and government logs of hotel guests

Demands for ID credentials from hotel guests are once again in the public eye, with commenters in travel journalist Christopher Elliott’s blog weighing in with opinions on his recent article about an Orlando hotel, Hotel shows customer the door after he refuses to show ID — can it do that?

This sort of thing doesn’t happen only in the land of Disney World, though. Coincidentally, one of the final public acts of the outgoing Chief Privacy Officer of the DHS last month was to release a lengthy analysis of European laws and practices for requiring hotel guests to identify themselves, and for government access to those records: Interim Report on the EU Approach to the Commercial Collection of Personal Data for Security Purposes: The Special Case of Hotel Guest Registration Data. Read More →

Feb 09 2009

Exit permits, ESTA, APIS, and asylum seekers

According to a recently-released European Commission staff working document, the U.S. Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) is not “tantamount to the … visa … process” required for admission to the European “Schengen Zone”, and therefore does not give cause for the imposition of reciprocal visa requirements for US citizens seeking to enter Schengen countries.

That’s may be correct. But the EC appears to have asked the wrong question: the ESTA is not an entry permit but an exit permit scheme — which is a much more fundamental violation of human rights, U.S. treaty obligations, and the sovereignty of European and other countries from which people might wish to travel to the U.S.

The same is true of other U.S. travel control schemes (including the APIS and Secure Flight regulations), the proposed European PNR regulations, and the “carrier responsibility” rules in both the U.S. and the E.U.  Regardless of whether it is referred to as “travel authorization”, “pre-departure clearance”, or “permission to transport”, the only meaningful way to construe a “travel authorization” that isn’t an entry visa is as a de facto exit visa. Read More →

Feb 04 2009

Amtrak police arrest participant in Amtrak photo contest

On December 21, 2008, Amtrak police arrested a photographer taking pictures on a public platform at Penn Station in New York … in response to an Amtrak photo contest calling for the public to submit photos of Amtrak trains.

We had heard about this story before, but now the Colbert Report has the story including an interview with the photographer, Duane Kerzic, and a reenactment of the incident, in the form of a great parody of the new Homeland Security USA “reality” show.   Kerzic’s own Web site includes his own description of what happened and actual photos before and after his arrest (including his injuries from the police).

Full episodes of the “real” Homeland Security USA are available in a peculiar streaming video format on the ABC television Web site.  (The player will only work if it thinks you are running Windows XP or Vista, but you can get it to work in Linux by using Firefox for Windows in the Wine environment.)

Episodes of the show broadcast to date, and available online, include such incidents as the warrantlesss “dump” of the data in a cell phone carried by a person trying to enter the U.S. from Canada, and their (and their companions’) being refused entry to the US based on a phone number in the cell phone believed to match a number associated with an entry for a different person on the no-fly list.  All without any hearing or involvement by a judge, of course, and without their being told anything about the data in the no-fly list entry used as the basis for refusing to allow them into the U.S.

Jan 15 2009

Recent developments in the USA in travel data

(Comments of the Identity Project at a workshop on “What’s on the agenda in the USA and Canada?” at the annual conference on Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection, Brussels, 16-17 January 2009)

Two major issues have emerged in the last year in relation to personal data about travel: (1) The overall goal of the government of the USA in its various policy initiatives on “travel security” has become increasingly clear. The USA is seeking to establish a global norm that:

  1. Government-issued identity credentials should be required for all forms of travel, domestic and international.
  2. All travel transactions should be recorded in a lifetime “travel history”.
  3. Pre-departure government permission should be required for all travel (based on the identity credential and the associated historical dossier), particularly for air travel or international travel.

Read More →

Jan 06 2009

“We Will Not Be Silent” on JetBlue Airlines

Showing that they haven’t lost their ability to waste their stockholders’ and the taxpayers money by violating travelers’ rights, JetBlue Airlines and two TSA officials have paid $240,000 to a JetBlue passenger who they forced to cover up the message on his t-shirt as a condition of allowing him to fly home from New York to California.

Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-American who works for the Nobel Peace prize-winning American Friends Service Committee, was prevented by both JetBlue and the TSA from boarding the plane until he covered up his shirt, which said “We will not be silent” in both English and Arabic.

JetBlue previously had to apologize to its customers for turning over its entire historical PNR database of records about everyone who had ever taken a JetBlue flight to a military contractor working on a profiling scheme linked to the Total Information Awareness program, prompting lawsuits by several groups of passengers.

Perhaps now that the TSA has settled with Mr. Jarrar, we can once again safely wear the “Suspected Terrorist” buttons that got John Gilmore and his traveling companion kicked off a British Airways flight in San Francisco.

Jan 05 2009

“The Department of Homeland Security in Action”

Just in time for the launch tomorrow night (Tuesday, Jan. 6th) of the the new DHS “reality” television show, Michael Yon has a timely post about an aspect of DHS reality that the “embedded” television production crews probably won’t show us: Border Bullies: The Department of Homeland Security in Action. Read the whole story. The devil is in the details of how Michael’s friend was treated on arrivial in the USA (en route to spend money as a tourist at Disneyworld), but here are a few snippets:

While the U.S. Immigration officer named Knapp rifled through all her belongings, Aew sat quietly. She was afraid of this man, who eventually pushed a keyboard to Aew and coerced her into giving up the password to her e-mail address. Officer Knapp read through Aew’s e-mails that were addressed to me, and mine to her. Aew would tell me later that she sat quietly, but “Inside I was crying.” She had been so excited to finally visit America. America, the only country ever to coerce her at the border. This is against everything I know about winning and losing the subtle wars. This is against everything I love about the United States. We are not supposed to behave like this. Aew would tell me later that she thought she would be arrested if she did not give the password….

Knowing that Homeland Security officers are creating animosity and anxiety at our borders does not make me feel safer. How many truly bad guys slip by while U.S. officers stand in small rooms and pick on little women?…

I had intended to show Aew a bit of my country. But it’s taking a little while for her to get over her discomfort at being in America. She was treated better in China. So was I.

Dec 24 2008

Weekly DHS propaganda hour on prime-time broadcast TV

Giving new meaning to the epithet, “security theater”, the hit Australian reality-television show Border Security has been franchised to the USA in the form of Homeland Security USA.

The weekly hour-long “reality” program is scheduled to begin Tuesday night, January 6th, 2009, on ABC.  Having seen the Australian predecessor, we can hardly wait to see how the DHS, with its growing focus on spin control and image management, wants to be seen.

The show boasts of the “full cooperation” of all DHS departments, without which it couldn’t be produced — and, therefore, who it can’t afford to offend if it wants to continue.

Dec 24 2008

DHS admits problems in disclosing travel surveillance records

On Friday, December 19th, the Privacy Office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released A Report Concerning Passenger Name Record Information Derived From Flights Between The U.S. and the European Union.

This is a very important report for both US and European travelers, but not for the reasons the DHS claims:

The authors of the report conclude that DHS handling of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data is in compliance with both US law (particularly the Privacy Act) and the DHS-EU agreement on USA access to, and use of, PNR data related to flights between the EU and the USA.

In fact, the report contains multiple admissions that support exactly the opposite conclusion: The DHS has complied with neither the agreement with the EU, nor US law (especially, but not only, the Privacy Act), in its use of PNR data concerning US citizens as well as Europeans and other foreigners.

The DHS has legal obligations to US citizens and residents under the Privacy Act, and commitments to travelers from the EU under the PNR agreeement, to allow individuals timely access to PNR data about them held by the DHS. According to the report:

DHS policy allows persons (including foreign nationals) to access and seek redress under the Privacy Act to raw PNR data maintained in ATS-P.

Despite this, the DHS Privacy Office has now reported that:

  1. Requests for PNR data have typically taken more than a year to answer — many times longer than the legal time limits in the Privacy Act and Freedom of Information Act: “The requests for PNR took more than one year to process.”
  2. When individuals have requested “all data” about them held by the DHS, often they have not been given any of their PNR data: “If an individual requests ‘all information held by CBP’ the FOIA specialist generally does not search ATS because PNR was not specifically requested.”
  3. Because of this, the vast majority of requesters who should have received PNR data did not: “The PNR specific requests are a small percentage of the total requests based on the statistics provided to the Privacy Office, but if ATS-P were searched in all cases in which an individual asks for ‘all information held by CBP,’ the percentage would increase more than seven [sic]”
  4. PNR data has been inconsistently censored before it was released: “The requests for PNR … were inconsistent in what information was redacted.”
  5. A large backlog from the initial requests for PNR data remains unanswered, more than a year later: “Management noted that they have been understaffed and are bringing on new staff to reduce the backlog and period of time it takes to respond to requests. Additionally, management stated that part of the delayed response was due to the large number of requests initially submitted for PNR.”

To understand the full meaning and significance of the report, let’s quickly review the history of US government use of PNR data:

Read More →

Dec 18 2008

Maryland Seeks to Change License Policy on Immigration In Order to Implement REAL ID System

Maryland’s governor and transportation secretary have announced that they will seek legislation to change the state’s long-standing policy on driver’s license registration and require proof of legal residence before issuing the cards to state residents. Maryland is hoping to make this change as it begins implementing the federal REAL ID national identification system. The governor had rejected a previous proposal for a two-tier system that would have allowed the issuance of a lower-tier license to individuals unwilling to show such proof.

According to the Maryland Motor Vehicle Association’s site, REAL ID implementation means that. “Effective January 1, 2010, individuals applying for a new license will be required to show documentation to prove that they are in the United States legally.” Driver’s license applicants will have to show “Documents such as Social Security Card, U.S. Birth Certificate, U.S. Naturalization of Citizenship, Valid U.S. Passport, Valid Foreign Passport with Visa, U.S. Permanent Residency Card” or other documents to prove their legal presence in the United States.

We have previously detailed the many privacy and security problems that arise from requiring such documentation for a state driver’s license, but let’s focus on the immigration issue that Maryland is attempting to address. Read More →