Bills to repeal the REAL-ID Act of 2005 were introduced yesterday in both houses of Congress by the members of Montana’s Congressional and Senate delegation: H.R. 4375 (“Repeal ID Act of 2016), sponsored by Rep. Ryan Zinke S. 2440, sponsored by Sen. Jon Tester and Sen. Steve Daines Sen. Daines: “Montanans have spoken loud and clear: […]
Last Thursday, December 3rd, the US Senate rejected a proposal to authorize the Attorney General to deny firearms licenses or permits to anyone the Attorney General suspects to “be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism, or providing material support or resources for terrorism.” Just […]
President Obama’s televised speech last Sunday included a smorgasbord of proposals (and endorsements for proposals already made by members of Congress) for more control and surveillance of travel. We’ll look first at the proposals for restrictions on travel by foreign visitors to the US, followed in our next post by some of those that would […]
Documents released to us by Amtrak suggest that since 2012, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has had direct access to Amtrak’s reservation system, possibly including access to reservations for Amtrak passengers traveling entirely within the USA. What do these documents show? And why would an immigration and border patrol agency want access to records […]
Stumbling into the embrace of the homeland-security state, California’s state legislature has sent to Governor Jerry Brown a bill which, unless the Governor vetoes it by October 11th, will require that: [T]he Department [of Motor Vehicles] shall require an applicant for an original driver’s license or identification card to submit satisfactory proof of California residency […]
Amtrak has released a third batch of records (1st interim response, 2nd interim response) in response to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about Amtrak’s collection and “sharing” with the US and Canadian governments of information about Amtrak travelers on international routes between the US and Canada: Amtrak-FOIA-29OCT2014-signed.pdf (note that this file […]
The Department of Homeland Security is extending its photography of travelers at US border crossings, ports, and international airports from foreign nationals to US citizens entering and leaving our own country. On January 5, 2004, under an “interim final rule” for the “US-VISIT” program effective the same day it was published in the Federal Register, […]
[Passenger Name Record (PNR) view from Amtrak “Police GUI”. Click image for larger version.] The first “interim” release of documents responsive to our FOIA request for records of police and other government access to Amtrak reservation data show that Amtrak is not only giving police root access and a dedicated user interface to mine passenger […]
Is gradual implementation of the REAL-ID Act cooking us slowly, like frogs who, if the temperature of the water is increased gradually enough, don’t realize that they need to jump out of the pot until it’s too late? Last month was another of the deadlines set by the Department of Homeland Security for “implementation” and […]
Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson announced this morning that, with immediate effect and with no advance notice or warning, foreign citizens “seeking to travel to the United States from countries in our Visa Waiver Program (VWP) will be required to provide additional data fields of information in the travel application submitted via the Electronic […]