The ongoing saga of attempted banishment of US citizens by their own government, through (secret, standardless, extra-judicial) administrative no-fly orders issued to airlines while those citizens are abroad, continues with two recent cases of San Diego college and university students. In June, Keven Iraniha was denied boarding for a flight on which he held a […]
As picked up on by Josh Gerstein of Politico.com, Attorney General Eric Holder was questioned this week during an appearance before Congress (see this video beginning at 1:23:47) about whether people who want to enter Federal office buildings or courthouses, petition the government for redress of their grievances, or travel to Washington by plane to […]
[MEPs picket outside the plenary chamber to ask their colleagues to say “No” to the PNR agreement with the US. (Photo by greensefa, some rights reserved under Creative Commons license, CC BY 2.0)”] Last week — despite the demonstration shown above (more photos here) by Members of the European Parliament as their colleagues entered the […]
As we’ve noted previously, members of the European Parliament have been exercising their right to question the European Commission about the proposed agreement negotiated by the EC with the USA to give travel companies partial immunity from EU privacy law when they open their reservation (“PNR“) databases to the US Department of Homeland Security. Numerous […]
In the latest variation on what has become a depressingly-familiar theme, US citizen Jamal Tarhuni was denied boarding on a flight home to the USA last month, apparently because while he was abroad the US government put him on the list of those people it has secretly ordered airlines not to transport. Mr. Tarhuni had […]
In his ruling this week in Hasbrouck v. CBP, Judge Seeborg of the US. District Court for the Northern District of California suggested that US citizens have no “rights” that would be prejudiced by applying newly-issued Privacy Act exemption rules to previously-made requests for government records. But a parallel case currently before the U.S. District […]
On December 30th, 2011, the US government filed its latest report (and appendices; also here in PDF format) to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) concerning US implementation of, and compliance with, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The ICCPR is one of the most important human rights treaties to which […]
[The following complete article (27 pages) or a summary of the key points (3 pages) can be downloaded in PDF format. Additional analyses and critiques of the proposed EU-US PNR agreement have been published by, among others, the Identity Project, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a coalition of US and EU NGOs.] FROM THE DESK […]
While it’s gotten almost no notice (yet) in the USA, our publication of the previously-secret text of the proposal for an agreement between the US and the European Union on DHS access to European PNR (passenger name record) data has prompted extensive discussion this week by journalists, activists, politicians, and bloggers throughout Europe. Here’s a […]
On November 17, 2011, US and European Union officials initialed a renegotiated proposed agreement (original English version; official German translation; official French translation) to authorize airlines to forward PNR data (travel reservations) to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As an executive agreement, not a treaty, it doesn’t require any further US approval, but […]