CIO
Washington Times
USA Today
CIO 's Art Jahnke (1/23) writes, "Everyone who watched the State of the Union address now knows the cornerstone of the President's re-election campaign: The United States is winning the war against terrorism, and we will win, ultimately, if the Congress does its part to renew the USA Patriot Act and expand the government's police powers. That expansion of powers includes the implementation of a controversial program called CAPPS II, a computer screening system that would examine background information on all passengers boarding commercial flights in the United States." According to Jahnke, "This type of program, in which airlines turn over passenger data to the government, had an unintentional test of public opinion last September, when it was revealed that JetBlue Airways had provided passenger itinerary information to a government contractor working on a project to improve security at military bases. In brief, the public went nuts. The airline received more than 1,500 e-mails from people who criticized the sharing of information, and JetBlue CEO David Neeleman issued an apologetic statement that described the sharing of data as a 'mistake.' ... Ultimately, the U.S. government has the power to compel airlines to turn over any and all passenger data that the feds want to see. And that, apparently, is what the government will do."
Washington Times
The Washington Times (1/23, Hudson) reports, "Government officials say factual Northwest Airline passenger data were not used in a study to pinpoint potential terrorists and that public U.S. Census data were used separately. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 'replaced actual passenger attributes with fictitious attributes to make the data anonymous,' said David Morse, NASA Ames Research Center spokesman." According to the Times, "Northwest Airlines is under fire by privacy advocates who are demanding the Transportation Department investigate the company for sharing private passenger information. Northwest gave NASA researchers 90 days of passenger flight information, but Mr. Morse said only information from one day was 'deidentified' for use. ... The study also used the census's Public Use Micro Data (PUMS), which contains 5 million households and 5 million personal records from 1990, to test whether a data-mining program could pinpoint anomalies. Mr. Morse said it was never cross-referenced with the airline passenger information." The Times continues, "A Census Bureau spokesman said NASA did not ask for additional information and said the long-form census information provided in the data cannot be traced to individuals. The latest technology is employed to prevent 'intrusive' research, said spokesman Mark Tolbert. ... Bob Barr, former Georgia congressman and a leading civil libertarian wants the entire study and methods investigated by Congress and the government. 'NASA has a distinguished history of conducting work critically important to the future of humanity, and it is deeply disappointing to see that work being endangered by inept meddling in affairs clearly outside the agency's jurisdiction,' Mr. Barr said."
USA Today
USA Today /AP (1/23) reports, "Major airlines agreed Thursday to work with the Homeland Security Department on ways to protect traveler privacy, a difficult new problem as the government seeks to use passenger information to keep terrorists off planes. Nuala O'Connor Kelly, Homeland Security's privacy officer, met with top airline executives and said they will meet with the department again to discuss privacy protections for their passengers. 'They seemed receptive to the idea that we need to work on and improve privacy policies and to explain the information sharing necessary,' Kelly said. Airlines support the government's plan to test a computerized aviation security system that compares passenger information with commercial databases and government watch lists. But each company fears being singled out by its customers if it's the only airline to offer the passenger data the government needs to test the system." The "meeting followed the disclosure last week that Northwest Airlines gave passenger data to the federal government for a similar security project in the three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Angry passengers filed a lawsuit, claiming the airline violated its own privacy policy as well as federal and state laws. Northwest Airlines chief executive Richard Anderson then urged the airline executives to discuss privacy standards for the industry at a regularly scheduled meeting of the Air Transport Association, an industry group."
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