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The Identity Project

Category Archives: Secret Law

Jun 24 2008

First Reports Of What It’s Like Flying Without ID Arrive

Travelers who willingly refuse to show ID to the Transportation Security Administration are now barred from flying. The new rule went into effect over the weekend. Now, in order to board the plane after forgetting one’s driver’s license, it seems you have to answer questions about your political party affiliation and previous addresses. TSA’s press release said that “cooperative passengers” without ID may be subjected to additional screening protocols, including enhanced physical screening, enhanced carry-on and/or checked baggage screening, interviews with behavior detection or law enforcement officers and other measures. It turns out that “and other measures” include questions about political party affiliation and other questionable invasions of privacy, according to an article that appeared on Consumerist.

Finally satisfied that I didn’t have ID, Laurie took my boarding pass and went away. She came back a few minutes later having photocopied it, and also had an affidavit that she requested I sign. It asked for my name and address, and stated in small print at the bottom that I did not have to fill it out, but if I didn’t I couldn’t fly. It also said that if I choose to fill it out and then provided false info, I would be in violation of federal law.

After filling out the affidavit, Laurie called a service to verify my address. The service needed me to then correctly answer three questions about myself, which Laurie relayed to me. The first was my date of birth, the second was a previous address (which I only got right on my second try), and the third was “You are registered to vote. Which political party have you registered with?” I got all three right, and only then did Laurie clear me to go through security.

As there is no published law governing what conditions the TSA has now placed upon individuals who have the temerity to travel without ID, only by reports such as these will we be able to ascertain what’s playing on the screen today at our nation’s security theater. The cost of admission is but your civil liberty and common sense. Contact us with your story.

Jun 23 2008

TSA Changes Airport ID Requirement; ID-Less Could Be Denied Right to Fly

The Transportation Security Administration has changed its airport ID requirement. These changes allow the agency to deny the right to fly to individuals who “willfully refuse” to present government-issued identification at an airport security checkpoint. The TSA’s press release, which is how we learn about changes in the law, now reads in part as follows:

Beginning Saturday, June 21, 2008 passengers that willfully refuse to provide identification at security checkpoint will be denied access to the secure area of airports. This change will apply exclusively to individuals that simply refuse to provide any identification or assist transportation security officers in ascertaining their identity.

This new procedure will not affect passengers that may have misplaced, lost or otherwise do not have ID but are cooperative with officers. Cooperative passengers without ID may be subjected to additional screening protocols, including enhanced physical screening, enhanced carry-on and/or checked baggage screening, interviews with behavior detection or law enforcement officers and other measures.

In Gilmore v. Gonzales (Gilmore was represented by The Identity Project Director James Harrison), we learned that the pre-June 21, 2008 policy allowed individuals who willfully refused to present government-issued identification to fly if they submitted to extra security screening. This new regulation is a substantial change that was made without public review through the usual Federal Register notice and comment process. Read More →

Mar 31 2008

ID Still Not Required To Fly

As reported several weeks ago and in accordance with the Gilmore decision, ID is not required to fly in the United States. Two recent documents have corroborated this fact. The first is today’s letter from South Carolina Governor Sanford to DHS in which he does not ask for an extension to comply with Real ID, but he does reference on its last page the Gilmore decision and the court’s determination therein that there is no ID to fly requirement.

The second is a letter from DHS dated March 22, 2008 to a private individual who queried DHS on their identification to fly policy after seeing signs in airports stating ID was required to fly despite the 9th Circuit’s ruling in Gilmore. This letter states that ID is, in fact, not required to fly domestically, despite DHS’ mis-truths printed on signs at airports.

This letter is important because the law that governs ID requirements to travel by air in the United States is identified by the Secretary of TSA to be Sensitive Security Information (“SSI”) meaning its release would be “detrimental to the safety of transportation” – meaning it’s “secret law” – meaning we can’t tell when the law has changed. All we are now allowed to know is that the law has not changed as of March 22, 2008.

We prefer the Federal Register as the resource for being alerted as to a change in the laws as opposed to DHS’ random corrections to their continuous mis-truths printed up on signs in our nation’s airports.

Sep 21 2007

The Homeland Security Vacuum Cleaner

An Identity Project investigation into the incredible amount of personal information collected by DHS was published yesterday. Titled “Homeland Security’s Data Vacuum Cleaner In Action”, the report documents how DHS keeps track of your race, what you read, where you sleep and with whom you associate. Wired‘s story from yesterday was followed-up by a front page splash in today’s Washington Post. We are opposing the DHS proposal to exempt most of this information from the Privacy Act., and we have posted forms and instructions on how you can request a copy of your own travel dossier.

Feb 12 2007

Identity Project unwelcome in Washington

Travel expert, author, and Identity Project consultant Edward Hasbrouck was expelled from the World Research Group, Inc. “Aviation Security Summit” conference — to which he had been specifically invited, as an author, and for which he had registered, paid in full, and been confirmed and signed in as an author — this morning in Alexandria, Virginia. A Wired News reporter, who has been promised a press pass, was also turned away when they arrived. [More from Wired’s 27B Stroke 6 blog, including an audio file of the voicemaail message promising their correspondent admission, here and here] According to conference organizer Pamela Masselli, one of the speakers was unwilling to give their prepared presentation with an author in the audience.

There are many objectionable aspects to this story. But let’s just think about what it says about airport security and the people managing it, assuming the claims about the reasons for Mr. Hasbrouck’s expulsion are true:

An airport security director was on the verge of giving a talk, containing sensitive information that it would be dangerous to make public, in a publicly advertised open forum to which the press had been invited and encouraged to attend. This would seem to be prima facie evidence of gross negligence in their handling of such sensitive information, and in failing to verify, before preparing a “sensitive” presentation, that the venue would be a secure one and the audience properly “cleared” to receive such information. Don’t hold your breath, though, for them to lose their security clearance, or their high-level security management job, for this negligence.

Then they proposed as a “solution” Mr. Hasbrouck’s eviction — thereby indicating, presumably, that they intended to proceed with the same “sensitive” presentation in a venue and before an audience that has still been neither secured nor “cleared” to receive it.

Mr. Hasbrouck registered in his own name, and truthfully volunteered his actual profession. But no attempt was made to check ID or verify who registrants actually were, Anyone remaining in the room after Mr. Hasbrouck was shown the door could have been — well, anyone. Presumably, if there were would-be terrorists in attendance, they wouldn’t have registered as journalists (or as terrorists), but in either fictitious or stolen identities.

Whoever saw throwing out the one known author as a way to “secure” the roomful of other entirely unknown people thereby proved themselves enthralled by a security fallacy, and grossly incompetent as a security professional. Sadly, that same fallacy is at the root of most of the demands for credentials and information about travellers. These measures, described at the start of the conference in words attributed to Secretary of Homeland Security Chertoff as “keeping bad people out of the country and off airplanes”, are premised on the false assumptions (1) that there exists a complete and accurate list of all the “bad people” in the world, and (2) that such people, when they want to “do bad things”, will use their own identities rather than fictitious or stolen identities.

Perhaps, in expelling Mr. Hasbrouck, the airport security authorities revealed more about themselves and their (in)competence than they would have if they had let him stay.

Dec 29 2006

More illegalities in the “Automated Targeting System”

Even while trying to defend the Automated Targeting System that is being used to deny travelers their rights on the basis of secret “risk assessments” that give each of us a terror score from secret databases of third-party and government information about us, the Department of Homeland Security has admitted to more and more violations of Federal laws, the U.S. Constitution, and international human rights treaties.

Today the Identity Project filed supplemental comments with the DHS, pointing out the additional legal problems — including criminal violations of the Privacy Act by DHS officials — revealed by DHS statements since we filed our initial comments on the ATS scheme and how it violates an explicit Congressional prohibition on assigning risk to airline passengers whose names aren’t on government watch lists.

We don’t expect the DHS, especially its Privacy (invasion) Ofiice, to police itself. Keep asking questions and demand answers and action from Congress and European Union officials. If you are in the EU, request your travel records so that we can find out what has really been happening, and how they have really been used.

Dec 13 2006

Targeting the Automated Targeting System

The DHS has been illegally operating a scheme for at least four years that assigns a terrorist risk assessment score to any American who crosses the border by air; and retains all the data used to generate the score for 40 years. The “Automated Targeting System”, which DHS Chertoff has described as “righteous”, has been operating illegally for several years, despite a specific ban by Congress on any and all risk assessment scoring on US citizens.

The time to speak out against this illegal, un-American program is now. DHS is trying to paper-up it’s illegal scheme by publishing a notice in the Federal Register.

We’ve set up an easy way for you to submit your comments without having to navigate the Byzantine labyrinth that is the Federal Register. Simply click here to be taken to a user-friendly submission form.

The comment period closes December 29th, so now is the time to have your say.

Dec 08 2006

Chertoff thinks it’s “righteous” to give each traveler a terror score

Everywhere he goes this week, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff is being dogged by questions about the illegality of the “Automated Targeting System” we pointed out in our comments filed Monday.

Today in Atlanta, Chertoff had this to say about the scheme that is already being used to archive your last 40 years of travel records, use them and everything else the government can find out about you to assign you a terror “risk assessment” each time you cross a U.S. border, and use that score to decide whether to let you travel:

“It’s not only legal but required by law,” Chertoff said during a visit to
Atlanta. “I think this is a righteous program.”…

Literally every day we’re turning people away” at U.S. entry points,
Chertoff said.

And he asserted that the ATS has “no cost to privacy or human rights.”

The AP story that reported this didn’t say whether Chertoff said godliness or cleanliness are among the 50+ factors used to calculate this “righteous” score.