“No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.” (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 12) This week the Council on American-Islamic Relations held a news conference in Washington (statements, testimony, and links to adiditonal info) featuring first-hand accounts of US citizens who have been trapped overseas, unable […]
US citizens generally assume that, whatever mistreatment is meted out to foreigners by US border guards and the DHS, we are entitled to enter and leave our own country without asking for, or receiving, permission from”our” government. That should be a safe assumption, under both the First Amendment to the US Constitution (which guarantees our […]
Despite being a party to international aviation and human rights treaties guaranteeing free passage through international airspace, the US government claims the right to require prior government permission (granted or withheld in secret, without due process, judicial review, or publicly disclosed standards) not just for travel to or from the USA but for transit through […]
The procedures and timeline for implementation of the TSA’s Secure Flight scheme for identity-based surveillance and control of airline passengers are spelled out not in laws or published regulations but in secret Security Directives to airlines. So we noted with considerable interest this report today by travel journalist Charlie Leocha of a relatively rare public […]
Today the Department of Homeland Security received its most significant rebuff from any democratically elected body since the DHS was created after September 11, 2001. In response to a recommendation from the Council of the European Union (the EU member national governments) for approval of the “interim” agreement under which the DHS obtains all airline […]
Last week the European Parliament, following a hearing earlier in the month in Brussels at which we testified, held a three-hour plenary debate in Strasbourg on proposals to approve access by the US Department of Homeland Security to European interbank transfer (SWIFT) and airline reservation (Passenger Name Record, PNR) data. The current “provisional” agreement to […]
At the meeting of the LIBE (civil liberties) committee of the European Parliament on the 7th of April, a representative of the European Commission announced that the EC will shortly be releasing a report on the second closed-door EC-DHS joint review of DHS compliance with the current “agreement” on DHS access to and use of […]
Even as the TSA continues to claim that virtual strip-search machines (body scanners, “whole body imaging”, or in the latest TSA euphemism “advanced imaging technology”) at airport and other checkpoints don’t reveal excessively intimate physical detail of subjects’ bodies, and that the images can’t be captured, and less than two months after similar scanners were […]
On September 11, 2001, Canada followed the US in closing its airspace and grounding all aircraft, stranding tens of thousands of passengers on flights to and from the US (mostly on inbound flights from Europe and Asia) at airports like Gander and St. John’s, Newfoundland. The Canadian welcome and hospitality for these travelers became the […]
The most recently filed lawsuit to result from detention of a would-be traveler at a TSA checkpoint highlights an interesting pattern: While Federal departments themselves, and their agents in their official capacities, have thus far largely escaped legal liability for interference with travelers’ rights, multiple lawsuits against individuals who have enforced secret DHS directives — […]