Late yesterday President Trump proclaimed a new ban on entry to the US or issuance of new US visas to citizens of twelve countries, and ordered drastic restrictions on entry or issuance of visas to citizens of seven others. The US has long sought to globalize its surveillance and control of travelers. In the past, […]
What is the REAL-ID Act? The REAL-ID Act of 2005 is a Federal law that was hastily enacted by Congress, with almost no debate, during the period of panic after 9/11. States almost immediately realized that it would be expensive to implement and would violate individual rights. But Congress has been unwilling to admit its […]
Today the Identity Project, Privacy Times, and Government Information Watch filed comments objecting to a proposal by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for blanket advance approval for USCIS to demand that all foreigners submitting any sort of application to USCIS provide a statement under penalty of perjury a list of all social media “platforms” […]
Does SAAS stand for “software as a service” or “surveillance as a service”? As we’ve reported previously, the UN Security Council and ICAO have illegally ordered all UN and ICAO members to create national agencies for surveillance of airline passengers and global sharing of airline reservations (PNR) and passenger manifest (API) data. Through bilateral and […]
Effective January 8, 2025, the United Kingdom began requiring citizens of the USA and most other countries who previously could enter the UK without visas for short visits for tourism and some other purposes to obtain a so-called Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) as a new precondition for admission to the UK for those purposes. The […]
A bipartisan group of six Maine state legislators has introduced a bill, L.D. 160, which would repeal all of the provisions of Maine law enabling the state to issue driver’s licenses and state ID cards potentially compliant with the REAL-ID Act of 2005. L.D. 160 was introduced yesterday and immediately referred to the Joint Committee […]
Edward Hasbrouck of the Identity Project was a guest today with Prof. David Farber (Keio Univ. Cyber Civilization Research Center) and Prof. Dan Gillmor (Arizona State Univ.) for the CCRC / IP-ASIA weekly online gathering on current issues, discussing the expansion of demands for ID, identification as a service provided by the government to commercial entities, […]
[Email from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the US Department of the Treasury to some of its banking industry partners forwarding list prepared by Mitsubishi United Financial Group (MUFG) of vendors at DMV (DC, Maryland, and Virginia) airports, train stations, and bus stops, to target reporting of purchases at these locations as “suspicious” […]
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 […]
Citizens of the USA and some other most-favored nations have long been able to travel to many European countries for tourism or business without visas or prearrangements and with minimal border formalities, as long as they didn’t stay too long or seek local residence or employment. This is scheduled to change with the imposition of […]