Yesterday the Bay Area Rapid Transit district (BART) held its first public discussion of BART’s recent actions to shut off wireless telephone and data service in parts of the BART system, and to close certain BART stations on the approach of certain groups of individuals, in order to prevent the use of those communications and […]
As we noted a few months ago, some elements of the travel industry (those more interested in whether the trains and planes run smoothly and on time than on whether their smooth operation includes integral surveillance and control of travelers by governments) have joined the homeland-security industrial complex in a lobbying campaign for traveler profiling […]
We aren’t sure how it’s been done, but the US government has somehow prevailed on Air Canada to deny boarding in London, for a flight to Toronto, to U.K. citizen Moazzam Begg. Begg was imprisoned (and, he says, tortured) for more than three years by the U.S. at Bagram, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, Cuba, but was […]
Several readers (among the thousands who submitted comments) have forwarded copies of the email message the State Department is sending as an auto-response to all mail to the point of contact for their proposed new “Biographical Questionnaire” for passport applicants, Form DS-5513. For your entertainment, and so we won’t be accused of quoting out of […]
The most frequently asked question in the ongoing discussion about the State Department’s proposed new “Biographical Questionnaire” for (some) passport applicants has been, “Is this a hoax?” We wish this were a joke, but it’s for real. The proposed Form DS-5513 that we published is the one we and others who requested it received from […]
Back in March, the State Department published a notice in the Federal Register that they were proposing a new “Biographical Questionnaire” for (some) passport applicants. But the notice didn’t include the proposed form itself. Curious, and concerned, we requested a copy of the proposed form from the State Department contact person listed in the Federal […]
The travel industry — concerned that treating all travelers as suspected terrorists will discourage travel and reduce their business — has joined forces with the homeland-security industrial complex of providers of travel surveillance and control technology in a pseudo-grassroots lobbying and propaganda campaign for more profiling of travelers. The motives of DHS contractors and their […]
A bizarre bill currently pending in the California Senate, S.B. 251, introduced Feb. 10, 2011, by Senator Lou Correa of Orange County, would require all applicants for California drivers’ licenses to consent to having the information they provide to the state Department of Motor Vehicles forwarded to the U.S. Selective Service System and used to […]
Last month we reported on a UK citizen trapped in Canada because his name was on a US no-fly list. This month it’s the reverse: Canadian citizen Mohammed Khan has been trapped in Frankfurt (where he was changing planes en route home from visiting family in Bangladesh) since Tuesday after being refused boarding by Air […]
The U.S. Department of State is proposing a new Biographical Questionnaire for passport applicants. The proposed new Form DS-5513 asks for all addresses since birth; lifetime employment history including employers’ and supervisors names, addresses, and telephone numbers; personal details of all siblings; mother’s address one year prior to your birth; any “religious ceremony” around the […]