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The Identity Project

Category Archives: Surveillance State

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.

Dec 08 2006

If you travel, you’re still a target

Other than us here at the Identity Project, it seems like nobody in Congress, nobody in the Department of Homeland Security, and nobody else bothers to read the law, or pay attention to whether the surveillance state is following the rules that are supposed to limit their intrusions on our lives and movements.

In comments filed Monday with the DHS, we pointed out that the newly-revealed “Automated Targeting System” (ATS) that the DHS has been operating for at least 7 years, compiling a massive database of travel reservations and other records about travelers and using this to assign us a “terrorist score” every time we cross the borders of the U.S., violates repeated direct orders from Congress to the DHS not to spend a penny on assigning such “risk assessments” to airline passengers.

That seems to have come as a surprise both the DHS, which has admitted to reporters that it has been doing this sort of scoring since the late 1990s — apparently paying no attention to the law — and to Congress.

In response to the furor generated by our comments, the Representative who drafted the law has now said that what the DHS was doing “clearly goes contrary to what we have in law” and was the kind of thing “we have been trying to prohibit.”

Many other organizations have now endorsed this argument in our comments.

Today the DHS published a new notice in the Federal Register which re-opens the public comment period on the ATS traveler-surveillance and scoring scheme, but which also officially allows it to remain in operation — as illegally as ever — in the meantime.

That’s not nearly good enough. If you file comments (go to Regulations.gov, search for docket 2006-0060, scroll through the list of documents on that docket to DHS-2006-0060-0062, and click on the “add comment” icon in the right-most column) or write to your representatives in Congress or the Canadian or European Parliament, demand that the DHS shut down the ATS and destroy the dossiers they’ve been collecting — now, not waiting until next month — and that Congress and other governments demand both answers and action, not just more empty promises to obey the laws the DHS has been breaking for years. You can submit comments until 5 p.m. Eastern time Friday, December 29th.  European Union citizens and residents can, and should, also demand your travel records and an accounting of what’s been given to the U.S. government.  Since the ATS has been exempted from FOIA and the Privacy Act, only requests in other countries where the same airlines and reservation systems do business, under those countries’ data protection laws, will enable us to find out what’s really been going on — or bring it to a halt.

Dec 05 2006

Every traveler is a target

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has revealed the exisitence of an “Automated Targeting System” for all international travelers (and some domestic travelers whose reservations are linked with anyone traveling internationally, as well as other people identified in reservation records) that collects information about travelers including their complete travel reservations, assigns each person a “risk assessment” score each time they cross the U.S. border, and stores these secret dossiers for 40 years.

The DHS claims the right to “share” this information with local, state, and Federal agencies and foreign governments, but won’t allow you to see your own dossier or find out what score they have given you, whether you are a target, or any of the information on which they have based your score.

The database will be used for “targeting”. The DHS doesn’t say what will happen to you if your lifetime travel score makes you one of their targets, but presumably it will be one of the factors the DHS will use to decide whether to give you permission to travel.

The Identity Project has filed comments with the DHS, objecting to this proposal. Among other things, we’ve pointed out that Congress has expressly forbidden the DHS from spending a penny on any system like this to assign risk scores to airline passengers, and that the Privacy Act forbids any Federal agency form collecting information abotu how we exercise rights protected by the First Amendment — like our right to travel — except as expressly directed by Congress.

Nov 22 2006

UK to publish National ID plan in December

The new UK Identity and Passport Service will publish an action plan for its RFID national biometric ID card scheme next month, and procurement will start next summer. ZDNet story, MK News.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Blair spoke in support of mandatory ID cards, while the Tory opposition party pledged to abolish ID cards. The No2ID opposition organization is finding and opposing the new interrogation centres being created to administer the scheme. They also have some fine T-shirts and stickers.

Nov 21 2006

EFF sues for details of US/EU flyer records hemorrhage

The Electronic Frontier Foundation‘s FLAG project has sued DHS after it stonewalled their FOIA request for details on the two year old US/EU agreement to violate the privacy of European and American travelers. Here’s EFF’s press release and their legal complaint. The agreement gives the US Government carte blanche to troll through every European airline’s reservation system. They can look at any passenger’s information that they desire, at any time, with minimal controls over what can be done with the information extracted. This violates EU privacy law.

Oct 23 2006

China to forbid anonymous blogging

Press reports say that China will no longer allow people to post to the Internet under pseudonyms without registering their “real name” with the government.

But that could never happen here. We all know that there is no requirement to register your real name or address with the government before being allowed to exercise any of the rights in the Constitution. At least those in the first two amendments. Right? Wrong.

Oct 20 2006

Europeans: Time to ask for your travel records

If you are a citizen or resident of the European Union, and have travelled to the United States, now is the time to ask for copies of your travel records.

Unlike Americans, Europeans have the right to know who is keeping records about you, what information is in your records, and to whom it has been given.

Airlines that fly from Europe to the U.S. have been illegally turning over passenger name records (PNR’s) to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Those records include where, when, and with whom you travelleled, your credit card information, and much more.

And the DHS is still not satisfied. They want more data, they want to keep it longer, and they want fewer rules about how they can use it or who they can give it to:

The chief U.S. negotiator … said Washington would push for the right to hold data on passengers for longer than the current arrangement of 3-1/2 years. “Our usual rule for law enforcement data is that it is kept for about 40 years, but the real question is how long is it likely to be relevant,” said Stewart Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Baker described restrictions included in the current accord as “almost a code of conduct for the United States” but said he was confident that negotiations due to start with Europe would lead to some of them being relaxed in any future pact.

The only way to find out what’s in your travel records, and what is being done with them, is to request them under your country’s data protection laws. Then, if the data protection law has been broken, you can complain to the authorities, or bring a lawsuit.

First, request your travel records from the travel agency or tour operator that booked your flights to the U.S., and the airline you flew on. When they respond, they should tell you which computerized reservation system (CRS) they use. Then you can request your records from the CRS as well. There might be records in two different CRS’s, with different data, if the travel agent uses one CRS to make the booking and send it to the airline, and the airline hosts its database in another CRS.

Here are sample letter for U.K. citizens and residents to request your travel records from travel agencies, tour operators, airlines, and CRS’s. If you are in another country, you can modify these to refer to your national data protection law:

Oct 14 2006

US Govt demands ID of all farm animals

The National Animal Identification System is a system by the US Department of Agriculture in which every farm is “registered” with the federal government and that every animal on every farm is tagged by some method, and has its movements tracked for life in a federal database. “These methods could include radio frequency identification tags, retinal scans, DNA, or others.” NoNAIS.org is a good source of information opposing the plan.

Just like TSA’s tracking program for humans, Registered Traveler, and the State Department’s chipping program for humans, RFID Passports, NAIS is “voluntary” now but planned to become mandatory. Various states, such as Texas, have already passed laws requiring farms to register for it. USDA is honest enough to admit its plan:

  • NAIS is currently a voluntary program. To ensure the participation requirements of NAIS not only provide the results necessary to maintain the health of the national herd but also is a program that is practical for producers and all others involved in production, USDA has adopted a phased-in approach to implementation. Although the draft strategic plan references mandatory requirements in 2008 and beyond, to date no actions have been initiated by USDA to develop regulations to require participation in NAIS.

No mandatory regulations have been “initiated”, but lots of other actions have been. Many small farmers have been threatened by state agriculture agents with big fines or the slaughter of their animals if they refuse to play along. And you can be sure that all the lessons learned about how to tag and track every animal will be re-applied to tagging and tracking every human.