The good news: In one of the first tests of US rules purporting to forbid US citizens from crossing US borders without first obtaining US passports (issued at the government’s apparently standardless discretion), the US Department of State issued “one-time waivers” authorizing the “Iroquois Nationals” lacrosse team to leave the US (and presumably to return, […]
Closely following the bad example (controversial both in the US and Australia) of the USA, the government of Australia is moving toward increasing detailed and integrated ID-based surveillance and control of air travelers. As of the first of this month, under the so-called Enhanced Passenger Assessment and Clearance (EPAC) systems, Australian authorities have real-time access […]
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 new UK coalition government has announced its initial Programme for Government, including a plan of action on civil liberties including, “We will scrap the ID card scheme, the National Identity register and the ContactPoint database, and halt the next generation of biometric passports.” Talk is cheap, but Bill 1 (text, explanatory notes) already introduced […]
[UPDATE: The trial which was scheduled to begin June 14, 2010 has been postponed. Check our FAQ about the case or the court calendar for further updates as soon as they are available.] We’ve written previously about the arrest of Phil Mocek at a TSA checkpoint at the airport in Albuquerque last November. Mr. Mocek […]
“Freedom Flyer” arrested at TSA checkpoint “NOT GUILTY” VERDICT BY JURY ON ALL CRIMINAL CHARGES (see also follow-up Federal civil rights lawsuit against police and TSA staff) Video of the verdict and excerpts from Phil Mocek’s reaction Audio of Mr. Mocek’s comments outside the courtroom immediately after the verdict (complete and unedited) Our analysis of […]
Today the Government Accountability Office released a detailed report on the TSA’s “Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques” (SPOT) program, providing considerably more detail than the TSA itself has ever provided, confirming the lack of any evidence that the program has spotted any terrorists, and suggesting implicitly that the DHS has been keeping yet another set […]
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has been holding another round of meetings this week at its headquarters in Montreal. As we predicted, the US delegation has been pressing its vision of an integrated and standardized global system of surveillance and control of air travel, in which government access would be built into airline reservation […]
In testimony before a Canadian parliamentary hearing last week by Assistant Commissioner Chantal Bernier, the office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada raised questions (previously asked in the Canadian press) about the implications for Canadian travelers of the US Secure Flight program — questions that travelers in the US and other countries should share. Asst. […]