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How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches
- guylhem 13y ago"TECS was the first pre-DHS database of Federal government logs of international travel. Several other “systems of records” (a term of art used in the Privacy Act) about travelers, including the Automated Targeting System (ATS) and DHS copies of PNR data (airline reservations) were originally considered part of TECS. The TECS file for an individual traveler typically includes a log of their border crossings (with record locators that serve as pointers to their PNR data ) and free-text notes on anything that customs and immigration inspectors thought warranted inclusion in the traveler’s permanent file." Example on http://hasbrouck.org/documents/secondary.pdf http://hasbrouck.org/documents/secondary.pdf Is there a way to consult this database? (FOIA?) It could be interesting.
- useful 13y agoIt's more surprising that DHS keeps copies of the PNR data. The passport/visa stuff is acceptable but you can tell a lot more about someone from PNR data. Who they travel with, payment information, itinerary, changes in travel, medical conditions, baggage, services, it goes on and on.
- sbarre 13y ago"DHS lawyers claimed that international travel provides, in and of itself, sufficient Constitutional basis for detention and search of international travellers and the search, seizure and copying of the digital contents of their belongings." Really? Fucking hell.. With every month that goes by, I am less and less inclined to travel to, or do business in, the US.. edit: I'm aware that later in the article they say the courts didn't really agree with this, but it doesn't seem to be preventing it from happening, especially when, after they got what they needed (I call bullshit on "destroy all copies"), they just back down and convince the victim to drop the case.
- maratd 13y ago> Really? Fucking hell.. With every month that goes by, I am less and less inclined to travel to, or do business in, the US.. The insinuation being that the US is the only country doing this? I hate this sort of thing as much as the next guy, but let's not pretend the US is the only country engaging in this behavior. We can certainly expect better, but don't blind yourself to the obvious. Based on recent events, maybe you shouldn't be traveling anywhere, period.
- greenyoda 13y agoIndeed. David Miranda was detained by British agents in London.
- carlob 13y agoIsrael is pretty bad in this department as well. I hear that visiting Israel with an Arabic last name, or, god forbid, trying to go visit Palestine from an Israeli airport will land you in all sorts of trouble. In fact I don't plan to visit Israel any time soon. I believe this is the sentiment of grandparent commenter, the fact that there might be other places where something like this happens is no excuse for a beacon of democracy such as the US.
- maratd 13y ago> I hear that visiting Israel with an Arabic last name, or, god forbid, trying to go visit Palestine from an Israeli airport will land you in all sorts of trouble. I hear that visiting Arab countries with a Jewish last name, or, god forbid, trying to go visit Israel from an Arabian airport will land you in all sorts of trouble. Any particular reason you're picking on one and not the other? A bit hypocritical, don't you think? That was the point of my comment. Let's stop now, ok? We're all in the same boat.
- umsm 13y agoI believe he was just giving an example. It didn't seem like he wanted to offend anyone.
- Mikeb85 13y agoOne of the many reasons I never fly to/from the US, and avoid ever passing through.
- atlanticus 13y agoCanada is part of the "Five Eyes" but enjoy your placebo.
- Mikeb85 13y agoYes but passing through our airports isn't a nightmare...
- snitko 13y agoOr so one might think... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24mlK24YDPI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24mlK24YDPI
- Mikeb85 13y agoSo they sent him through a different customs agent, who took a cell phone he voluntarily gave to them, and then let him go... Doesn't sound particularly awful. Anyhow, they probably suspected he was going to work illegally in Canada (plenty of people come as visitors and work illegally), and wanted to make sure that those weren't his plans. Edit - furthermore, having any sort of sensitive information on a cell phone is idiotic, since they are far from secure. It's not terribly difficult to hack any device with physical access - and it's not hard to simply lose your cell phone...
- snitko 13y agoI don't mean to undermine the effort of put into the lawsuit and this careful analysis. But... Shocking. Government has access to passenger's itinerary. I mean, with all the recent revelations, we might have just assumed that.
- lisper 13y agoYou have missed the point. It is not that the government has access to your itinerary, it is that low-level government officials (apparently) have access to your itinerary with no administrative oversight whatsoever. The NSA at least puts on a show of getting FISA court approval. But DHS isn't even going through the motions. The key passage from the article: "The implication is that rather than search its own ATS database of copies of PNR data, the ICE investigator searched the airline’s own internal PNR database, using the DHS root access to the Sabre computerized reservation system (CRS) used by American Airlines. That was probably easier than searching ATS because the way DHS “ingests” PNR data from CRSs into ATS leaves the data less well indexed in TECS and ATS than it was (and still is — the airline sends DHS a copy, but of course retains the PNR data itself) in the CRS. Notably, there’s nothing to indicate that the ICE investigator needed approval from a supervisor to go into Sabre, or tried some other source of PNR information (e.g. the internal ATS database of DHS copies of PNR data) first. Root access to Sabre was apparently at his fingertips, and his use of it warranted no special comment and no recording of compliance with any authorization protocols. It was a routine tool for him."
- snitko 13y agoI, personally, have no trust in any government, so I sort of assumed that too. But that's me. I think you're right and it raises an important question for others, whether the government is really what they think it is.
- Amadou 13y agoThat sort of cynicism is probably the chief enabler of such corruption. As with any other human endeavor, government will never be perfect, but that isn't a reason to give up on holding government to high standards. It is reasonable to take precautionary steps in your personal life while at the very same time demanding that the government behave such that those steps are completely unnecessary.
- btbuildem 13y ago"By agreeing to settle the case, the DHS avoided either any new appellate precedent limiting its borders search authority, or any judicial review of the specific basis for its actions with respect to Mr. House. As in other cases, the DHS treated the threat of judicial review of its actions as the ultimate danger to be avoided at all costs, even if that required destroying evidence it had previously claimed was vitally needed." What a cancerous growth this DHS is.
- dwaltrip 13y agoWhile I can't blame them at all, it is too bad Mr. House settled. I wonder what would have been the outcome.
- at-fates-hands 13y agoI heard this quote earlier this week during a discussion about the failure to stop the Naval Base shooter. He should have been picked up or at least been on someone's radar well before killing 13 people. "When we're watching EVERYBODY, you'll never catch ANYBODY." which made a lot of sense to me. It seems like these agencies are trying to watch everybody in an effort to catch one lone person without considering any supporting data. Thus, you end up with scenario's like this where innocent people are being caught up in this wide net their casting.
- netcan 13y agoThis seems extreme but the reality is that foreigners and homosexuals are sketchy. This sort of policing is important.
- jjjeffrey 13y agoWhat's so sketchy about them?
- bloodorange 13y agoI suppose you haven't learnt about the ghastly things done by the likes of Alan Turing, Stephen Fry and Neil Patrick Harris. (If you don't get the sarcasm there, please forgive me and the gentlemen mentioned above too...)
- unimpressive 13y ago>homosexuals I can understand foreigners, but why homosexuals?
- NPC82 13y agoHe's being facetious.
- gcb0 13y agoThe focus on that article is silly. Of course I want law officials to have real time information about travel and be able to catch a criminal before he flees. The issue should not be that, but that they use that to initiate illegal searches. The focus should be on illegal searches, period.
- glasz 13y agowhen was the last time a "criminal" was caught during flee-by-flight and the government was NOT involved in the first place?
- gcb0 13y agoThis is my point. This is like those dumb fox new things saying something trivial is a crime because it 'involved computers'. They can already do that, but inefficiently by posting your pictures all over the place and having officers look for your face. AFTER they get a warrant or follow due process. This is just a more efficient way of doing the above. The focus should be on the lack of due process, not on the means being more efficient.
- znowi 13y agoquestioned him about his political activities and beliefs confiscated his laptop computer, camera and a USB drive If this happened to a computer scientist abroad, say Moscow airport, there would be a storm coming from the western media about oppressive regimes and human rights. Possibly even a condemnation from the US government.
- glasz 13y agofor the sake of simplifying my point i assume many if not most of you are us-based us-citizen: whenever an issue like this comes up everybody starts to fight and nitpick. as if nobody can see through it. as if everybody is blinded. as if everybody doesn't care about the core of the matter. as if an entire generation or two is just too dumbed down to recognize the scheme. you know, i love you. but i'm sick of you. if you don't fix your bloody country, nobody will do it for you.
- contingencies 13y agoThe rough standard is basically that data must be provided by airlines to authorities at the point of landing at least 15 minutes before departure. In practice they probably provide it earlier. I did some FOIAs in to this stuff with the EU recently @ http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/information_on_pnr_agreements http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/information_on_pnr_agreem... My interpretation was that the picture the response painted was of five eyes nations all hitting up the EU for their passenger data. Right after the US got their claws in Australia was in there and the US utilized its grand experience with bureaucracy to ensure the EU Data Protection Supervisor didn't even have time to review the proposal before it was passed. After that query, I updated Wikipedia's info over here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_name_record#International_PNR_Sharing_Agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_name_record#Internat... The lesson here is that you are wary of authorities for whatever reason (and we probably all should be), then you should seek to avoid pre-booking flights (or ships) ... just turn up and buy a ticket instead ... and preferably avoid long haul flights at all, certainly those terminating in countries with dodgy authorities, if you can afford to do so.
- jevinskie 13y agoAmazing! Thank you for your efforts into investigating this. I find the EU FOIA site fascinating and I wish the US had an equivalent.
- dm2 13y agoAny computer with sensitive files should have them encrypted, or preferably have your entire hard drive encrypted. They should also be backed-up in case the computer is lost, stolen, destroyed, or seized. If a person or company keeps sensitive files on an insecure computer, then that company/person should be at fault. If you send sensitive data over the internet then it should be encrypted. If not, then companies, governments, and other organizations could easily grab that data. In reality though, there are millions of completely insecure computers and devices which carry data that could harm companies, individuals, or governments if compromised. Educating the operators of those machines and ensuring that they properly secure them is very difficult. The best method would be to have hard-drive level encryption on all devices, make sure people know how to properly backup data, and to educate people that they can easily say, "I don't know the password, I'm suppose to call my IT manager after I arrive at my destination and he will provide the password."
- ballard 13y agoTo future investigative writers: Diagrams and acronym glossaries please. If a subject is hard to understand, unclear presentation is another barrier. (People have limited attention and thoughtspace.)
- retrogradeorbit 13y agoSo this is the global stasi panopticon world that we are leaving our children with. It's just disgusting.
- WildUtah 13y ago1. Light-gray on black color scheme invites eye strain. 2. Bright orange link text is even more horrible than usual because of light gray on black color scheme. 3. Extra tiny font size (1em) is almost unreadable against black background. 4. There are constant readability crimes in the text with overuse of scare quotes, unnecessary abuse of the 'and/or' abomination, incorrect use of double scare quotes outside literal quotations, and overuse of parenthetical statements. 5. Use of "beg the question" to mean "raise the question" is incorrect. The content was fine, but you'd better be young, brave, and impervious to pain if you want to access it.