The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) admitted it violated the Privacy Act two years ago by obtaining more commercial data about US airline passengers than it had announced it would.

Seventeen months ago, the government accountability office (GAO), Congress’ auditing arm, reached the same conclusion — the department’s transportation security administration (TSA) “did not fully disclose to the public its use of personal information in its fall 2004 privacy notices as required by the Privacy Act.”

Even so, in a report on Friday on the testing of TSA’s Secure Flight domestic air passenger screening program, the DHS privacy office acknowledged TSA did not comply with the law.

Instead, the privacy office said: “TSA announced one testing program, but conducted an entirely different one.” (more…)

Many business travelers prefer to sit in an aisle seat. Many also prefer to sit near the front of the plane so they may be among the first off when the plane lands.

Those also happen to be seats that might be desirable for terrorists bent on hijacking an airplane.

That common seat preference shared by business fliers and violent extremists could be earning innocent passengers additional scrutiny as they cross the U.S. border.

Last month, in a little-noticed filing buried deep in the Federal Register and first reported by the Associated Press, the Department of Homeland Security revealed that for several years, it had been using a so-called Automated Targeting System to screen passengers entering and leaving the United States. (more…)

The Homeland Security Department has once again ruffled the feathers of citizens concerned about Big Brother-type programs by formulating a computer-generated process that ranks the risk each American and international traveler poses for terrorism or criminal acts.

Uneasiness about this Automated Targeting System stems from the fact that its four years old, was instituted without telling the American public, probes deeply into our personal records, forbids us from seeing the information and correcting what may be false, and that the records may be kept for 40 years.

ATS taps our motor vehicle and travel records, how we pay for tickets, seating preferences and what meals we order. Other information pulled into the risk analysis includes our home, billing and e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, the number of bags we take on trips, etc. It doesnt take any imagination to discern that the data also gives Homeland Security access to Social Security numbers, tax, credit, income, health and other personal facts. (more…)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government approved new technology that will automatically scan shoes and boots for bombs, and promises that travelers will soon be spared the trouble of scurrying through security in their socks. But the new machines will be available only to travelers who pay to join a special program, at least at first.

The shoe-scanner approval will give a crucial boost to the Registered Traveler program, which is designed to provide faster airport security screening, via a special security line, to travelers who sign up in advance and undergo a background check. But the program, to be run by private companies under the supervision of the Transportation Security Administration, has languished for years, and currently is operating only in Orlando, Fla.

The shoe scanner is expected to draw customers to the program because not only will it speed up lines. It will also offer another perk — remaining shod — to attract customers willing to pay annual fees of about $100. (more…)

Body scanners are a virtual strip-search that Americans should not be subjected to. They offer very little security value in return for the cost to our dignity and privacy.

Let’s be clear: The body scanners - known as “backscatter” - are X-ray devices that expose us to radiation. And the government has not carefully studied what long-term effects that radiation will have on frequent fliers, or even casual ones.

But of more immediate concern, they create incredibly graphic images of our naked bodies. Those images will reveal not only our private body parts, but also intimate medical details such as colostomy bags or the effects of a mastectomy. (more…)

Military and civilian units take part in homeland security drill

NORAD and NORTHCOM are taking part in a training exercise that began last Monday and will last through December 14th.

Army Major General William G. Webster, NORTHCOM director of operations, said by today the units involved in the exercise had dealt with a nuclear weapons-accident, terrorists attacking a U.S. military installation, the crash of a civilian plane in Canada and two U.S. airlines reporting distress situations. (more…)

A semi-annual report filed this week by Homeland Security Inspector General Richard L. Skinner showed a marked increase in arrests of department and other government employees, but contained no recommendations for security improvements, RAW STORY has learned.

Media spokeswoman Tamara Faulkner of the Inspector General’s office told RAW STORY that many of the arrests associated with the report, “were due to oversight associated with the inter-departmental oversight involved with the recovery process of Hurricane Katrina.”

Indeed, there was fraud discovered in connection with Katrina and the FEMA division of Homeland Security, but more alarming are the many arrests made of employees working for the government. Among the claims: (more…)

Whenever the US government runs afoul of public opinion with some data-mining scheme threatening to invade the privacy of millions, it changes the name and then goes ahead as planned. We had the “Total Information Awareness” (TIA) federal scheme to mine official and commercial databases, which morphed into the MATRIX, an interconnected state scheme to mine official and commercial databases, to which the federal government has access.

We had the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System (CAPPS-2), a scheme to mine official and commercial databases and produce a threat assessment of each passenger. After the public indicated its displeasure, its name was changed to the warmer and fuzzier “Secure Flight”, but Congress still shut it down due to privacy and accuracy concerns.

Now it’s back, with a new name and acronym, the Automated Targeting System (ATS). Nothing warm or fuzzy about that; it sounds like part of some hi-tech weapons system. But naturally, it’s just CAPPS/Secure Flight by another name. (more…)

From the Department Of Homeland Security’s “Privacy Impact Assessment”:

Appendix B PNR Data Elements
PNR Data Elements May Include*

1. PNR record locator code
2. Date of reservation
3. Date(s) of intended travel
4. Name
5. Other names on PNR
6. Number of travelers on PNR
7. Seat information
8. Address (more…)

The US government has warned of an al-Qaeda call to attack US online stock market and banking services.
The threat, seen on an al-Qaeda website, applied to the whole of December.

It was said to be in revenge for the continued detention of suspects at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, Russ Knocke, said there was no evidence to corroborate the threat. (more…)