[IP] AP: Federal Agency Collected Extensive Personal Data About Airline Passengers Despite Pledge
Begin forwarded message:
From: eekid@xxxxxxx
Date: June 22, 2005 2:12:31 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: AP: Federal Agency Collected Extensive Personal Data About
Airline Passengers Despite Pledge
AP: Federal Agency Collected Extensive Personal Data About Airline
Passengers Despite Pledge
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal agency collected extensive personal
information about airline passengers although Congress told it not to
and it said it wouldn't, according to documents obtained Monday by
The Associated Press.
A Transportation Security Administration contractor used three data
brokers to collect detailed information about U.S. citizens who flew
on commercial airlines in June 2004 in order to test a terrorist
screening program called Secure Flight, according to documents that
will be published in the Federal Register this week.
The TSA had ordered the airlines to turn over data on those
passengers, called passenger name records, in November.
The contractor, EagleForce Associates, then combined the passenger
name records with commercial data from three contractors that
included first, last and middle names, home address and phone number,
birthdate, name suffix, second surname, spouse first name, gender,
second address, third address, ZIP code and latitude and longitude of
address.
EagleForce then produced CD-ROMS containing the information "and
provided those CD-ROMS to TSA for use in watch list match testing,"
the documents said.
According to previous official notices, TSA had said it would not
store commercial data about airline passengers.
The Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits the government from keeping a
secret database.
"I'm just floored," said Tim Sparapani, a privacy lawyer with the
American Civil Liberties Union. "This is like creating an FBI file,
not just some simple check, and then they're storing the data."
TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield said the program was being developed with
a commitment to privacy, and that it was routine to change the
official definition of a system of records during a test phase.
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