Papers, Please!

The Identity Project

Sep 04 2018

The US State Department is still denying passports to US citizens

A report in the Washington Post last week has brought renewed attention to the US State Department’s ongoing denial of passports to many US citizens.

The Washington Post story focuses on Mexican-Americans whose passports have been revoked or whose applications for new or renewal passports have been officially or effectively denied, and suggests that, “under President Trump, the passport denials and revocations appear to be surging.”

We’ve been pointing out the varied methods and manifestations of these State Department practices for years. As a result, we’ve become a common point of contact for US citizens seeking to exercise their right to travel and to obtain redress for passport denials and revocations.  We welcome additional spotlighting of these issues.

But it’s important to recognize that these practices are not new; are not limited to Mexican-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Muslims, and/or immigrants; did not originate with the Trump Administration; and rely on administrative mechanisms first given official approval by, and on the initiative of, the Obama Administration.

Nor are these practices limited to passports and international travel. Similar restrictions on issuance and renewal of drivers’ licenses and state ID cards being imposed as a result of the REAL-ID Act of 2005 are already causing similar problems for travel within the US.

These practices and problems reflect a bipartisan and constant trend, throughout the Bush, Obama, and Trump Administrations, toward growing use of ID requirements and controls on the issuance of ID credentials to control the movement of both US citizens and foreigners, within the US as well as across international borders.

Here’s the back story to the latest reports on passport denials and revocations, with links to some of the more detailed articles about it that we’ve published over the years: Read More →

Aug 31 2018

A broader legal challenge to Federal blacklists

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 suspicion.

2. That permanent suspicion has sweeping consequences for the Plaintiffs as well as the more than one million others who bear it. They are separated from their children, denied employment opportunities, prevented from traveling by air to attend weddings and funerals, and denied or delayed immigration benefits. The rights of Plaintiffs to purchase firearms, to wire money and keep a bank account, to receive their passports and be granted visas to foreign countries are all constrained. For one plaintiff, the Defendants’ actions have diminished his standing and ability to provide religious leadership to his community.

3. Through an interagency watchlisting system, led by Defendants’ Watchlisting Advisory Council, the Defendants have identified the Plaintiffs as worthy of permanent suspicion, imposing burdens and disabilities on them in all aspects of their lives.

4. In deciding to target the Plaintiffs, the watchlisting system behaves lawlessly, acting in the absence of and — in some ways — in opposition to what Congress requires of its agencies.

5. To identify its targets, some parts of the watchlisting system, such as the Terrorism Screening Database (“TSDB”), utilize a nonsense-on-stilts standard that is always satisfied. Other parts, such as TSA’s Quiet Skies initiative, do not use any standard and instead rely upon the inarticulate hunches of federal officials, rank profiling, and vulgar guilt-by-association practices.

6. Through their watchlisting system, the federal government makes it known — to every law enforcement agency in the country, every part of the federal government, more than 60 foreign countries, an unknown number of private companies, international bodies, and other third parties—that the Plaintiffs should be treated as dangerous threats. The Plaintiffs’ friends, family, and others with whom the Plaintiffs associate are punished for their relationship with a watchlisting system’s target.

So begins the complaint filed earlier this month in Federal court in Maryland in the broadest legal challenge to date to the US government’s sweeping program of extrajudicial blacklisting and restriction of the rights of US (and foreign) citizens.

Read More →

Aug 28 2018

CBP expands partnership with airlines on facial recognition

This month US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) posted the latest in a series of Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) for its Traveler Verification Service (TVS) program.

The  latest PIA gives notice (although not in the form required by Federal law) that CBP and its airline and airport  partners are carrying out a second expanded phase of “demonstrations” of TVS, an identity-as-a-service scheme designed to use automated recognition of images from a shared CBP/airline/airport database of facial photos for purposes including surveillance and control (for CBP) and business process automation and price personalization (for airlines and airports).

CBP (1) describes TVS as a “biometric exit” program, (2) describes the current use of TVS as merely a “demonstration”, (3) continues to claim that airlines and airports “have no interest in keeping or retaining” facial images any longer , or using them for any other purposes, than is required by CBP for “security”, and (4) says that U.S citizens aren’t required to submit to mug shots.

These claims are intended to lull the public into not protesting: “This is only a test, using photos for limited purposes. The photos will be deleted once you get on the plane, and not used for nay commercial or other purpose.” And so forth.

All that might be somewhat reassuring, if any of it were true. But  none of it is:

Read More →

Aug 05 2018

New lies from a Federal official about ID requirements

In a speech this week in Florida, President Trump falsely claimed that, “You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID. You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture.”

Some commentators have expressed surprise that a high Federal official would make a claim about an ID requirement for an everyday activity, when (1) that claim is false, and known to be false by all of the people who engage in that activity without having ID, (2) that claim is not based on any law or regulations, and (3) any such law or regulation would exceed the government’s authority and likely be subject to legal challenge.

Whether Pres. Trump is so out of touch with the reality of ID requirements that he made this claim in sincere ignorance, or whether he knew it was false, it comes as no surprise to us.

Rather, Pres. Trump’s false claim that you need ID to buy groceries is perfectly consistent with the pattern of lies about ID requirements by high Federal and state officials, especially the big lie that you need ID to fly.

Hundreds of people fly without ID every day, just as tens of millions of people every day buy groceries without showing ID.  No current or proposed law or regulation requires air travelers to show ID, and any such law would be invalid as a violation of human rights recognized by the US Constitution and international treaties.

Claims by the Secretary of Homeland Security and state driver licensing agencies that you need (or will need) ID to fly are as baseless as Pres. Trump’s claim that  you need ID to buy groceries. Anyone who has ever flown without ID — perhaps after their ID was lost or stolen, perhaps because they forgot their ID, or perhaps because they don’t have ID — knows that these claims are false.

But rather than questioning or fact-checking these baseless claims by the DHS and state agencies, or mocking the officials who make these false claims about ID to fly the way they have mocked Pres. Trump for his false claims about ID  to buy groceries, major news media have reprinted this fake news about ID to fly as fact.

The real lesson to be learned from the obvious falsehood of Pres. Trump’s claims is that you can’t trust the government to tell you the truth about ID requirements or your rights. You need to know your rights, assert them, and be prepared to defend them in court — or the false government claim that you have no rights will become a self-fulfilling myth.

We hope that this incident leads more journalists and members of the public alike to question the truth and the legitimacy of government claims about ID “requirements”.

Jul 29 2018

Federal Air Marshals blow the whistle on TSA “Quiet Skies” traveler surveillance program

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 selects certain airline passengers, who aren’t on any blacklist (“watchlist”) or under investigation for any crime, on the basis of algorithmic profiling, countries previously visited (merely traveling to Turkey has been enough to get some people selected), phone numbers or email addresses, and/or other factors in DHS files about them.

A FAM or team of FAMs is assigned to follow each targeted traveler from the time they arrive at their airport of origin (which the TSA knows from its access to airline reservations through the Secure Flight program), onto and on the plane, through any connecting airports, and until the unwitting target of their surveillance leaves the airport at their final destination.

The FAM gumshoes are required to file detailed reports on each traveler they are assigned to stalk, including a checklist of details such as whether the person being tailed used the toilet in the airport or on the plane, whether they slept for most of the flight or only briefly, and whether they had “strong body odor” or engaged in “excessive fidgeting.”

Is this the reincarnation of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, the (re)emergence of an American Stasi, or standard operating procedure for a government that regards travel as inherently suspicious, rather than as the exercise of human and Constitutional rights?

All of the above, unfortunately.

The story in the Globe speaks for itself, and is worth reading in full.

But lest it be misunderstood, here are some key points about what today’s news reveals, what’s new and what isn’t, and why it’s significant:

Read More →

Jul 23 2018

Airlines, airports, and cruise lines “partner” with DHS

This month some cruise lines are joining airlines and airports in taking mug shots of travelers and passing them on to US Customs and Border Protection (CB P). CBP uses these facial images (“biometrics”) for border and travel control and general law enforcement (policing and surveillance) purposes, and shares them with other Department of Homeland Security components and other domestic and foreign entities.

Read More →

Jul 18 2018

California DMV lies about the REAL-ID Act

We’ve heard that the California Department of Motor Vehicles has posted scary new signs in DMV offices around the state misinforming motorists and holders of DMV-issued non-driver state ID cards about the Federal REAL-ID Act of 2005.

We assume that these public disinformation messages are similar in content to the false answers to frequently asked questions and other propaganda about REAL-ID on the DMV website.

We’ve been through all this before with similar false claims about the REAL-ID Act by the California DMV and the Federal Department of Homeland Security. But lest anyone be misled by seemingly authoritative statements from government agencies, here are some of the real facts about REAL-ID that are contradicted, denied, or ignored in DMV press releases. Read More →

Jul 17 2018

3rd Circuit gives impunity to TSA checkpoint staff

TSA checkpoint staff often act as though they were above the law. But are they really?

Sadly, they often are, at least in the opinion of some Federal judges.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals recent decision in Pellegrino v. TSA , in combination with its decision last year in Vanderklok v. TSA, mean that — at least for now, and at least in the 3rd Circuit — no civil recourse or remedy is available through the Federal courts against checkpoint staff who deliberately assault travelers, lie about their own actions and those of travellers, and make knowingly and deliberately false complaints to police in order to get travelers wrongly arrested.

The two judges in the majority on the three-judge panel that upheld the dismissal of Nadine Pellegrino’s complaint  explicitly acknowledged the implications of their decision:

We recognize that our holding here, combined with our decision in Vanderklok, means that individuals harmed by the intentional torts of TSOs will have very limited legal redress. And we are sympathetic to the concerns this may raise as a matter of policy, particularly given the nature and frequency of TSOs’ contact with the flying public. For most people, TSA screenings are an unavoidable feature of flying, 49 U.S.C. §44901(a), and they may involve thorough searches of not only the belongings of passengers but also their physical persons…. For these reasons, Congress may well see fit to …  legislate recourse for passengers who seek to assert intentional tort claims against TSOs. But such policy judgments, particularly as they relate to sovereign immunity and the public fisc, fall squarely in the realm of the legislative branch.

The dissenting member of the panel (the dissent starts at p. 54 of the slip opinion) characterized the decision more bluntly:

My colleagues[‘]…  decision insulates TSOs from all intentional tort claims, leaving plaintiffs without a civil remedy. Absent congressional action, they cannot recover if a TSO [Transportation Security “Officer”] assaults them, unlawfully detains them, or unlawfully lodges a criminal complaint against them.

The details of the opinion dismissing Ms. Pellegrino’s complaint might be described charitably as arcane, and uncharitably as twisted.
Read More →

Jul 14 2018

Greyhound, Amtrak, and ID demands

Changes in Greyhound business practices jeopardize the already-limited options for cross-country travel by people in the USA who don’t have, or don’t chose to show, government-issued  ID credentials.

For local transportation, undocumented people who want or need to travel further and/or faster than they can walk can ride bicycles (although there have been proposals in some jurisdictions to require registration of bicycles and/or bicyclists), or use public mass transit (where it exists, and where fares can be paid anonymously in cash, which isn’t the case with some cashless transit fare payment schemes).

Long-distance travel options for people without papers are even more limited. Policies adopted by airlines and Amtrak, combined with ID requirements for drivers of private motor vehicles, have left long-distance bus companies as the carriers of last resort for long-distance travel by undocumented people.

The options for the undocumented get even narrower when one starts looking at specific routes. Greyhound is the only company providing scheduled transcontinental bus service, a truly national route system, or any intercity bus service to many destinations in the USA.

That makes Greyhound’s route system and ID policies, or the lack of any Greyhound policy conditioning domestic US travel on possession or display of government-issued ID, of paramount importance to anyone who wants to move about the US without showing ID.

Read More →

Jun 22 2018

Arguments for and against TSA Form 415

We’ve finally begun receiving records from the TSA of how the public responded to the TSA’s proposal in 2016 to start requiring travelers to show ID in order to fly.

Since 2008, TSA and contractor staff at airport checkpoints have been demanding that some travelers who do not have ID, do not show ID to checkpoint staff, or show ID that is initially deemed “unacceptable” fill out and sign TSA Form 415, “Certification of Identity”, and answer questions about the information in the (secret) file about them maintained and made available to the TSA by the commercial data broker Accurint.

Before any Federal agency such as the TSA starts collecting information from the public, whether verbally or through a written form, the agency is required to obtain approval for the “information collection” from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The TSA has never requested or obtained approval for any version of Form 415. But in 2016, the TSA gave notice that it intended to seek OMB approval for Form  415, and accepted comments on that proposal from the public by email. After submitting our own objections to the TSA’s proposal, the Identity Project made a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request for the complete administrative record related to the TSA’s contemplated request.

The TSA has not yet actually submitted a request to OMB for approval of Form 415, but has continued to use it illegally without OMB approval.

In May 2018, we received a heavily redacted version of the TSA’s procedures for “ID verification” including use of Form 415.

Now we’ve received a first partial set of excerpts from the “administrative record” related to the TSA’s proposal, consisting mainly of comments submitted by the public.

Most of the comments were from civil liberties and human rights organizations opposed to the TSA’s proposal, including the Identity Project, the Cyber Privacy Project,  the Constitution Alliance, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

But the TSA also received comments questioning the TSA proposal from at least one state government, and a single frighteningly revealing comment urging the TSA to use even more intrusive measures to track people who try to fly without “acceptable” ID.

Read More →