Following its most recent meeting on May 31, 2019, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) announced last week that “The Board has voted to conduct an oversight project related to the use of airline Passenger Name Records.” We welcome this announcement by the PCLOB, and look forward to whatever opportunities may be presented […]
Is suspicionless spying on what US citizens, foreign residents, visitors to the US, and their families, friends and associates do and say on social media an “essential” function of the US government? Federal employees deemed “inessential” have been furloughed. But those still working for deferred paychecks apparently include staff of the Department of Homeland Security, […]
1. The federal government has imposed a kind of second-class citizenship on the Plaintiffs. Without charges, without arrests, without even an investigation sometimes — the agency defendants act in concert to deprive thousands of innocent Americans, mostly Muslim, of their right to be free from a government that extrajudicially designates them as worthy of permanent […]
Jana Winter has a detailed investigative report on the front page of today’s Boston Globe about a previously secret TSA program of illegal surveillance of innocent air travelers, “Quiet Skies”. According to the story in the Globe, based in part on descriptions and documents apparently leaked by dissident Federal Air Marshals, the “Quiet Skies” program […]
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has published a new Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for its Automated Passport Control (APC) kiosks and Mobile Passport Control (MPC) apps. Unlike most PIA’s, this one does not say why it was prepared, or what, if anything, about the programs it assesses has changed. But it appears to be […]
A press release last week from Unisys gives a disturbing glimpse into the extent to which border guards — possibly including US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other components of the US Department of Homeland Security — are making decisions on the basis of automated “pre-crime” predictions of future bad actions or bad intentions. […]
Decline to show your ID the next time someone demands it – and stand your ground. Ask to see the law that requires you to show your ID. See just what happens. Inform yourself, by personal experience, about your society and your country. Oppose state laws that would cause your state to join the AAMVA […]
The Secure Flight program creates a system of records into which the TSA places the data it receives from the airlines and uses to determine whether you are allowed to fly. The collection of this data by the federal government is subject to the requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974 that requires that American […]
– An IDP Investigation The Identity Project continues to pursue our investigation of what records the TSA and DHS are keeping about our movements. You can help by exercising your right to request your travel records using the forms and instructions here.
Invoking memes that we’ve seen and warned about before under both Democratic and Republican administrations, President Trump has attributed the latest version 3.0 of his “Muslim ban”announced today (proclamation, FAQ, explainer) with the need to comply with ICAO and INTERPOL standards for passport issuance, “identity management”, and data sharing about travelers — as though US immigration […]