[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 […]
[Excerpt from DHS “TECS” travel history log showing API data extracted from the reservation for a passenger on Amtrak (carrier code 2V) train 69 from Penn Station, New York (NYP) to Montreal (MTR). “QYRSLT” redacted by DHS (at left on second line from bottom) is result of pre-crime risk score query to DHS profiling system. […]
On December 21, 2008, Amtrak police arrested a photographer taking pictures on a public platform at Penn Station in New York … in response to an Amtrak photo contest calling for the public to submit photos of Amtrak trains. We had heard about this story before, but now the Colbert Report has the story including […]
There are elections today in the USA. But we don’t need to know their outcome to predict many of the issues that the Identity Project and our supporters and allies will continue to face in the coming years. For what it’s worth, everything that was on our agenda for the first Obama Administration, following the […]
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have been working together for years to steal travelers’ money. The DEA pays informers to finger people who might be flying with large amounts of cash, and gets the TSA to identify these people when they go through TSA checkpoints at airports, claim that […]
In recent overviews, we’ve discussed the barriers to getting a passport or state-issued driver’s license or ID card (especially in states that have chosen to participate in the national REAL-ID system and database) and the difficulties faced by travelers without ID. Some cities, notably including New York and San Francisco, have attempted to mitigate the […]
In our previous article, we looked at the state of ID requirements and the the right to international travel for U.S. citizens. What about domestic travel within the USA without ID? Flying? Domestic US airline passengers are subject to demands for ID by airlines and the TSA. These demands are of dubious validity, and have […]
[Arrows indicate populations of states where abortion is, or is likely to become, illegal, and directions and distances to the nearest states where abortion is legal. Note that some of the routes shown are more likely to be followed than others, since abortion is more or less heavily restricted in some states where it is […]
On the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, the Freedom to Travel Act of 2021 (H.R. 6030, “To protect the right to travel by common carrier”), has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the […]
[“How do you get on the no-fly list?” Larger image; PDF with legend.] In the aftermath of the storming of the U.S. Capitol last week, there’s been a confused cacophony of calls to “put the rioters on the no-fly list.” At the same time, there have been equally confusing claims and denials that some people […]