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 […]
In a final rule published last week at 75 Federal Register 5487-5481, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division of the Department of Homeland Security has exempted most of the data used by the illegal “Automated Targeting System – Passenger” (ATS-P) from the various requirements of the Privacy Act that information used to make decisions […]
With some British airports introducing “No scan, No fly” policies, we’ve been seeing renewed questions about what you can do if a government agency or agent, airline, or private third party won’t let you into or through an airport or onto a flight on a common carrier. A would-be traveler holding a valid ticket and complying […]
Already this week the TSA was caught in a lie about what it likes to call whole body imaging (virtual strip search) machines, when the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained documents showing that, despite TSA claims that “this state-of-the-art technology cannot store, print, transmit or save the image,” the TSA actually requires all of […]
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 […]
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 […]
President Obama’s much-belated nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration, Erroll Southers — faced only softball questioning at a confirmation hearing last week before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. None of the questions we’ve raised for the nominee about TSA policies and procedures, or about the philosophical or practical attitude of the […]
Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) used to have constant trouble at airports because a name similar to his was on the TSA’s “no-fly” list. Even as a senior Senator he couldn’t find out why, and couldn’t get the harassment stopped (which he eventually mentioned publicly during a Senate hearing) for more than three weeks. For […]
Ryan Singel of Wired News has reported that documents (see the links to some of them at the end of the Wired story) provided in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act show that the FBI’s National Security Branch “National Security Analysis Center” (NSAC) has obtained a variety of commercial travel records from […]
One reason there’s been no change in TSA “policy” under the Obama administration — if you can call it “policy” when there are no rules and the people in charge think their decisions aren’t subject to judicial review — is that President Obama hasn’t yet appointed an Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Transportation Security […]