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Reality-based commentary on politics.

DHS wants to know if you’re gay, unionized & have political opinions

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Raw Story passes along a CNN report stating that

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The new agreement with the European Union requires airlines traveling from Europe to the United States to give the Homeland Security Department a broad array of passenger information. Currently, name, address, phone, e-mail contacts, itineraries, credit card information, and current hotel reservations are shared and analyzed at the National Targeting Center. Now airlines, if they have the data, will also be required to pass on passengers’ racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and data on health, traveling partners, and sexual orientation.

Can someone please tell me how my opinion of casinos, my membership in the pipe fitters union, the fact that I travel with my mother or my sexual orientation can be of valid interest to DHS?  Other than to threaten my liberty and pursuit of happiness, that is?  Is this “ethnic origin” thing just code for “identify the brown people”?  And I don’t know about you, but I’m a terrible judge of ethnic origin.  Are airline employees trained to distinguish between Caribbean and North American blacks?  How about Puerto Ricans and Brazilians?  And those Poles – they sure can look an awfully lot like Russians.  Kikuyu & Luo?  Need I go on?

But what am I afraid of?  After all

But, under the agreement, that information is only to be used when lives are at risk, such as in a terrorism investigation.

Uh huh, riiiight.  Even if I believed that, don’t we hear with regularity how laptops loaded with intensely private information are lost/stolen?

But they do try to reassure us:

RUSSELL KNOCKE, SPOKESPERSON, HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT: We’re going to be able to connect the dots more quickly and we’re going to be able to provide our front-line personnel with a powerful tool that really can help to save lives.

What they don’t bother to do is tell us just how knowing whether I like men or women or both matters one zot. 

What can be done about this gross invasion of privacy?  DHS press release and link to documents here.

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Comments

    • That is, as sure as I can be about anything in this administration.  The TRIPS website is here.  For the list of info collected, see page 12 in the document I linked to above called new agreement with the European Union.  That is a European website.  If you want to read it on the US website, check out page 2 of the “Letter from the US…” I linked to at DHS press release and link to documents here.

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      If you are still unsure, maybe you could call DHS and ask?  If we never hear from you again, we’ll know it’s for real. đŸ˜‰

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      Something upsetting is that the agreement draws attention to and enumerates routine information to be transferred (name, address, seat number), but then just lumps together all the ugly info they would like to collect without explaining how they will get it or how it is of any consequence to the purported “war on terror”.

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      When you fly to YearlyKos, you might ask the flight attendants whether they are aware of this new rule (it goes into effect Aug 1), and what info they are collecting by eavesdropping on their passengers.  I wonder what they’ll say.  Are you and David flying together?  Try not to look like such a cute couple, and be careful how you answer the question “chicken or beef?”. đŸ˜€

    • Actually, it does appear that the agreement mentions “sensitive EU PNR data”, including the information Laurel mentioned. See page 12 of 18 of the document. Here’s the cut and paste, and make of it what you will:

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      To the extent that sensitive EU PNR data (i.e. personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and data concerning the health or sex life of the individual), as specified by the PNR codes and terms which DHS has identified in consultation with the European Commission, are included in the above typesof EU PNR data, DHS employs an automated system which filters those sensitive PNR codes and terms and does not use this information. Unless the data is accessed for an exceptional case, as described in the next paragraph, DHS promptly deletes the sensitive EU PNR data.

      If necessary in an exceptional case where the life of a data subject or of others could be imperilled or seriously impaired, DHS officials may require and use information in EU PNR other than thoselisted above, including sensitive data. In that event, DHS will maintain a log of access to anysensitive data in EU PNR and will delete the data within 30 days once the purpose for which it hasbeen accessed is accomplished and its retention is not required by law. DHS will provide notice normally within 48 hours to the European Commission (DG JLS) that such data, including sensitive data, has been accessed.

    • a reliable enough source?  Their story is here.  The EU data official had this concern

      But the EU’s top data protection official expressed concern over the agreement, saying it will put privacy of EU citizens at risk.

      “I have serious doubts whether the outcome of these negotiations will be fully compatible with European fundamental rights,” European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx said in a letter to Schaeuble.

      He said that under the new deal, data on passengers will be readily accessible to a broad range of U.S. agencies, with no limitations on what the U.S. is allowed to do with the information.

      The current agreement allows the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency to disclose so-called Passenger Name Records to other U.S. law enforcement agencies for use in anti-terror investigations if those agencies have data protection standards comparable to the EU’s legal demands.

      National parliaments of some EU member states still want to clarify which U.S. agencies will have access to data under the new deal.

      I’m glad to see someone is taking this seriously. 

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      Here also is a story from Guardian Unlimited

      In a strongly worded document drawn up in response to the plan that will affect the 4 million-plus Britons who travel to the US every year, the EU parliament said it ‘notes with concern that sensitive data (ie personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and data concerning the health or sex life of individuals) will be made available to the DHS and that these data may be used by the DHS in exceptional cases’.
      […]
      Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor, has written to the EC expressing his ‘grave concern’ at the plan, which he describes as ‘without legal precedent’ and one that puts ‘European data protection rights at risk’.

      Hustinx warns: ‘Data on EU citizens will be readily accessible to a broad range of US agencies and there is no limitation to what US authorities are allowed to do with the data.’

      He expresses concern about ‘the absence of a robust legal mechanism that enables EU citizens to challenge misuse of their personal information’.

      • Airlines don’t collect data about sexual orientation, so this seems to me to be something of a red herring. I do grant that if a PNR contains information of that kind — for example, if the airlines start making it up — then it will be transferred to DHS.

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        The point is that data of this kind should not be required for air travel and should not be collected. That is what I think is objectionable.

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        In any event, as you know, David is a very dreamy fellow: I’m sure the ATA Airlines data collection agents will be very jealous of whomever is sitting next to him.

        • since the items are listed in the official agreement with the EU, it is reasonable to expect that the DHS wants that information, and is hinting very strongly that it wishes to receive it from airlines, whether “officially” collected or not.  and even if that information is never collected or relayed by the airlines, it is sinister that a place for it even exists in the DHS database?  if you build a table for it, the data will come…

        • Airlines don’t collect data about sexual orientation

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          maybe not explicitly, but I’ll give you an example.  When we check in at Termanal 2 at the Munich Airport to return to the USofA, we (my same-sex spouse and I) go up to the Schalter together and say “wir reisen zusammen” (we’re traveling together).  So that they can check us in together, and seat us together (the latter is another point in the HeimatSicherheitsAmt requirement).  The airline collects that information, and transmits it to the HeimatSicherheitsAmt in the USofA.  What is the obvious initial conclusion?  It should be obvious: that they are a pair of faggots trying to enter the USofA.  Now, let me ask you this: why should the HeimatSicherheitsAmt care if a pair of faggots want to enter the USofA?

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          BTW, I’m using the German for a reason.  As I wrote below, willkommen in dem dritten Reich.

          • when entering and leaving Schiphol in Amsterdam, the Dutch agents very thoroughly (but utterly politely) grill you on why you are there, where you’ll go, who you’ll see and who you saw them with.  It would be quite easy to identify putative gay couples from this brief session.  Lying is an option, but then of course you run the risk of being caught in a lie.  Of course the Dutch border agents aren’t flight personnel, and so aren’t affected by the agreement I mention above.  However, the Dutch have been very compliant with the Bush gov’t.  I see no reason to assume that they would protect this information.  Like raj mentions about Germany below, despite the pogrom in WWII, the Netherlands still maintains detailed information on each and every resident, including religion and where they live.  In fact, when you move, you must register you new location with the govt’.  What other info they keep I have no idea, but the system that enabled the 3rd Reich to speedily locate and wipe out most Dutch Jews is still in place.  Put 2 and 2 together.  If you’re a member of a loathed minority in the Bush years, you’re an idiot not to be concerned.

            • …despite their reputation in the US regarding drugs.

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              BTW, in Germany, a resident is supposed to “anmelden” and “abmelden” (announce their moving into a community and moving out of it) when they move into a town or out of a town, but I doubt that most people do.  We tried to do the “anmelden” once at the town hall, and the burocrats there didn’t know what we were asking to do.

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              One thing that the burocrats do actually do is ask how many radios and television sets you have–you are taxed on them.

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              That aside, I don’t particularly care for the information gathering that the Bush malAdministration is doing one bit, and, given the history of Europe, I’m surprised that they are going along with it.  I wonder how many people will be flying to the US via Toronto or Montreal to avoid this invasion of privacy.

          • I’m not sure that this is easily distinguishable from me travelling with someone from the office.  We say exactly the same thing.  So I will be logged as gay on business, and straight when travelling with my wife?  DHS will think I have a much more exciting life than is accurate.

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            So, even if the data is collected, it will not be very accurate, unless the traveller dresses and acts like Nathan Lane in The Birdcage.

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            Of course it is easy to see why this data is so important:  the extreme threat of gay jihadists.

            • you raise a good point.  and this is, that if DHS wants to prevent terrorists from entering the country, they should forbid entry to all heterosexuals.

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              but seriously, do you really behave the same when your seat mate is your wife and when it is your business partner?  what business are you in, that promotes pecks on the cheek amongst its coworkers?  it is usually quite easy to tell who is a couple and who isn’t.  an astute and well-seasoned flight attendant will have no trouble figuring this out.  all the same, i do hope they ger conflicting information about your purported sex life.  the flagrant inconsistencies in how you present yourself will draw attention to you file, hopefully to the neglect of mine.

            • …when my father would travel for business, the company GE would not allow him and either his superior or his underling to travel on the same plane.  Accidents, you know.  The company couldn’t afford to lose both of them at the same time.  And my father, an engineering manager, was not even in upper management.

  2. A few years ago, I had an opportunity to look at my (German) mother-in-law’s passport.  I was amazed that it listed her religion.  I would have thought that they would have stopped that, given their “little” experience in the 1940s known as the Holocaust.

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    If the Ministerium Heimat Sicherheit wants to collect information of peoples’ sexual orientation for incoming airline passengers, you can be sure that they are probably also doing it for the Einheimer (local US residents).

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