It’s tempting to think that when you show a business or government agency your identity credentials, all that happens is an ID “check”. They verify that your ID is genuine, and that it shows that you are in a category of people who are authorized to cross a border, buy alcohol, operate a motor vehicle, […]
Under a series of new laws and regulatory proposals, almost everyone traveling internationally to or from the USA — US passport holders, visa-free foreign visitors, and foreigners with visas — would have to pay more in government fees for the required credentials and/or permissions. This week the U.S. Senate passed the “Travel Promotion Act”, a […]
News reports about recent diplomatic initiatives by the US Department of Homeland Security suggest that the DHS may once again be using the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as a vehicle for policy laundering. In the past, ICAO has been the focus of attention for its role in the imposition of RFID passports and the […]
After two months, we’ve gotten an initial round of non-responses from the DHS and TSA to our complaint that their procedures for subjecting holders of certain passports to more intrusive search and/or interrogation as a condition of domestic common-carrier air travel violate published TSA civil rights policies, Federal laws, Constitutional rights, and rights guaranteed by […]
We’ve been having a hard time keeping up with events over the last few weeks. Every time we think the keystone cops from the Department of Homeland Security can’t come up with anything dumber to do, they prove us wrong. At this point we’re not sure who is most deserving of derision: (1) the would-be […]
In the course of testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, the Director of the FBI’s “Terrorist Screening Center” (TSC) has, for the first time, stated publicly what the government claims to be the “substantive derogatory criteria” used in the (secret, non-adversarial, extra-judicial) process of determining whether to place a name on the “No-Fly” list, […]
To: TSA.OCR-ExternalCompliance@dhs.gov, civil.liberties@dhs.gov Subject: National-origin discrimination in TSA “Screening Management SOP” Date: Friday, 11 December 2009 According to the TSA Civil Rights Policy Statement: “[T]he public we serve are to be treated in a fair, lawful, and nondiscriminatory manner, without regard to … national origin.” However, according to Appendix 2A-2.C.1(b)(iv) of the TSA Screening Management […]
There are no legally binding rules (other than those provided by the federal Privacy Act, the U.S. Constitution, and international human rights treaties, all of which the TSA routinely ignores) specifying the limits of TSA authority at checkpoints, what you do and don’t have to do, and which questions you have to answer or orders […]
The DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has released a redacted version of a report (OIG-09-103) that was provided to Congress in August, evaluating the TSA’s “Traveler Redress Inquiry Program” (TRIP). The TRIP name may be corny, but it’s also oddly accurate: it’s a system for inquiries, not answers, and as the OIG concludes […]
With the public paying more attention ot Federal financial policy, more people might be interested in watching government meetings like those of the Federal Reserve Board. But what if you don’t have government-issued identity credentials, or don’t chose to show them? Are you still entitles to observe your tax dollars at work? We recently came across […]