The Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security are quietly pushing for a set of crazy new rules. All travellers in the U.S. will be required to get government-issued credentials and official clearance before every flight, both within the United States as well as internationally.
And Monday we received a new political action alert from Edward Hasbrouk, The Practical Nomad blogger who's been fighting the plan (and who testified about it at a TSA hearing). "The international Advance Passenger Information System rules were published, as 'final' effective February 19,2008, with no further opportunity for public comment even on the changes from the original proposal."
Hasbrouck sees this as a very ominous development. "The Department of Homeland Security can now evade debate on the similar elements of their Secure Flight proposal by claiming that it's needed to 'harmonize' the domestic and international travel restrictions — as though travel within America was tantamount to and subject to the same government restrictions and controls as crossing international borders."
The stakes are high — and air travel may never be the same. "The Secure Flight proposal also includes new and odious requirements that travelers display their government-issued credentials — not to government agents, but to airline personnel (staff or contractors), whenever the Department of Homeland Security orders the airline to demand them… " That alone will create a huge potential for abuse. "The proposed Secure Flight rules would leave travelers hopelessly at the mercy of any identity thief who claims to be an airline contractor (subcontractor, sub-subcontractor, etc.) demanding 'Your papers, please!' anywhere in an airport."
But your personal information faces an even bigger risk. "In addition, the proposed rules would leave the airlines free to keep all the information obtained from travelers under government coercion, even after they've passed it on to the government. Your personal data would continue to be considered, at least in America, solely their property. Not yours..."
According to Hasbrouk, the Identity Project — an organization defending our right to travel freely in our own country — has made requests under the Privacy Act and they "have uncovered many more details (and many more problems) with the U.S. government's dossiers of travel records, which include everything from what books travelers were carrying to phone numbers of friends and associates to whether they asked for one bed or two in their hotel room."
Unfortunately, Monday, October 22 was the deadline for posting public comments on the proposed rules.
But it's never too late to express your outrage... against another act in the continuing project to turn the United States into North Korea.
See Also:
Homeland Security Follies
Is It Fascism Yet?
Art of Bioterrorism: Who Cares?
Anarchy for the USA: A Conversation with Josh Wolf
Venezuela: Dispatch from a Surrealist Autocracy
Oh my God! The government will know what books I read or how many beds I requested in my hotel room?! Will this madness never end?
The madness will end when the government says you can’t get on the plane because you like to read anti-government “propaganda” or you used to watch The Daily Show or your wife isn’t accompanying you yet you requested two beds. “And who exactly will be using that second bed, Mr. Slave? Sex outside of marriage is illegal in America now Mr. Slave.”
I’m not worried about private companies having my information, Amazon has a bunch already and besides, private companies don’t send armed men to your door to kill your animals and incarcerate you.
In the future everyone will be granted permission to fly only you won’t know if you’re getting on a plane or a train to the camps until you arrive at the airport.
When I was in school, I used to hear all sorts of horror stories about how the Nazis and Communists were. And most of the crap we are doing now, we condemned those groups for.
In the US they are literally trying to take away everything which we stand for, our freedom. All in the name of False Security. We are no safer now than we were 7 years ago, in fact statistics say we are more vulnerable now than we have ever been.
Can you say “Papers please?”
Fuck this what if they don’t want me to leave the country? Illegal immigration here I come :)
This will actually be pretty crappy for the economy. And also obviously piss off many people. So hopefully the consciousness it raises will be worth the short-term pain… One can only hope.
I doubt that this will actually happen. The reason I say this is that the airlines and travel are a part of big business. The airlines are connected to the hotels, local tourism, and conventions, which are connected to retail, and the food industry, etc. ad infinitum. The strangle hold it would have on the economy would prove disastrous. The movers and shakers in Big Business won’t allow this to happen. Especially because most of them travel frequently and would be the group who’d be inconvenienced the most!
If you look at the field of presidential candidates, all of them from both parties are for restricting our liberties for security except for one: Dr. Ron Paul.
I think the choice for the next president is the easiest it has been since George Washington was elected.
If you don’t vote for Ron Paul and his agenda of restoring the republic and adhering to the Constitution, you are an idiot and deserve the police state you will get. I for one will be moving to one of the countries that are bastions of liberty like Estonia or the Cayman Islands.
They’ve extended the date for public comment to November 21, 2007. Must have been some behind the scenes screaming happening.
you can read about the extension here: http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/layers/secureflight/index.shtm
I doubt that this will happen because it will wreck the airline business, including Southwest, a good friend of W. Post 9-11 flying sucks anyway–I keep it to a minimum.
Dick
So… They’re not only censoring science reports to Congress… Now they want to restrict our travel, not only internationally, but domestically… Welcome to the Fourth Reich, people! And Nancy Pelosi says she hasn’t enough evidence to inpeach? Sheesh! I’ve been protesting this Nazi administration ever since GWB and his pals rigged the election in 2000!
One thing that has been and is being proved by this administration is the need to get rid of the Electoral College. We wouldn’t be having these problems if Al Gore had taken office in 2005 after having won the popular vote in 2004!
As for Big Buisness being upset by this latest attempt at a totalitarian state: What do you want to bet that there won’t be V.I.P. passes for all of GWB’s buddies? The airlines will suffer, yes. But how much do you want to bet that they’ll all be combined into one national airline like Aeroflot?
Hey guys! It’s 1984 in our Brave New World!
If this is somehow passed, I will pretty much conceed that all is lost, that the United States that I grew up in and that my father served in WWII is no longer.
On the bright side, think of all the extra gas people will burn driving places! The petroleum industry has got to adore this new legislation. Even small planes will burn more fuel since we’re removing the economy of scale that big airliners offer.
And the population will have a dent put in it with the extra traffic fatalities we’ll get from people driving cross-country into the wee hours trying to get places they previously would have flown to. I mean, it took a little over three weeks to kill as many people as 9/11 did in motor vehicles, so just think how many more we can kill off with lonely stretches of interstate packed with potential traffic victims, going broke at record speeds paying for fuel.
“I doubt this will happen because…” The US Government is already pressuring the Canadian Government to provide DHS with the names of all airline passengers boarding flights originating in Canada that will use US airspace in reaching their destination even if that destination is not US territory. Amerika Uber Alles! Sieg Heil!
What’s next, internal passports? “Back in the U.S.S.R., you don’t know how lucky you are, back in the U.S.S., back in the U.S.S.R.”
Thanks, John Lennon. As usual, you were ahead of the curve.
At this point, I think these sorts of restrictions are unlikely for the reasons “My2 cents” proposes. Not to mention that they’d be tied up in court for years and years if they ever saw the light of day.
However, if America suffers another terrorist attack before Bush leaves office, all bets are off. The Bushistas will use it as an excuse to shred the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and implement the kind of domestic crackdown that is the stuff of Cheney’s wet dreams. Having to present one’s identity papers to the Obersturmführer at the airport would be the least of our worries.
Oh, this kind of thing will never happen here. All of you people are always crying about something the Bush Administration is going to do….and it never happens.
Secure Flight will be invisible to most travelers. The airlines submit passenger information to TSA, and they send back whether the passenger is on the No-Fly list or is a “Selectee” for more extensive search. It will actually speed up the process for people who are NOT on the lists. Yes, you need to be certified by the Taking Scissors Away folks, but no, you are not part of the process.
Not that I like this system. I don’t. I already fly only when absolutely necessary for business, or to attend a funeral. But Joe American won’t even notice it’s there.
The public comment period has been extended to November 21: http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/layers/secureflight/ . Not that the nazis will care about anything you say, but I recommend calling them nazis to their face.
There’s a link on that page to the text of the proposed rule. It’s a PDF with images of the printed pages, so you can’t easily post or search the text. Sheesh.
Randy where have you been? All kinds of people have died, reputations ruin, put in prison for no reason without a trial, lost their jobs when not of the right party, lost their homes, their right of free speech…prevented from protesting, jailed, lazsered, etc.
Randy it happens but apparently you were never the victim or knew someone who was (so far).
Why are you all getting so riled up? Is the Constitution and Bill of Rights really that important? Besides this law will only apply to men because women are always victims and never terrorists so they will be excempt. One exception will be foreign women who may try to come into the U.S. via Canada or travel within the USA in order to meet you male premeditated torturers and serial abusers who managed to contact them illegally. They will be immediately deported back to their home country in order to protect them from these predators or, as I like to call them, “enemy combatants” and “terrorists.” This is why my taxpayer funded feminist group had to sneak in the IMBRA law which wouldn’t pass on its own in 2004 as it was so un-Constitutional and unAmerican. It makes it illegal for you men to say hi to foreign women without a criminal background check. Don’t believe me? Think it couldn’t happen in America? Google it for yourself for a preview of other anti-male laws I have planned for you men who don’t want to marry feminists.
Layli Miller-Muro is trying her best to prevent word of her un-Constitutional IMBRA law from getting out to the mainstream public. (Have you ever heard of it? It has been law for over a year now. It makes this TSA law look like The Bill Of Rights.) Even most politicians are unaware they signed it as it was sneaked in at the last minute to the renewal of another law just as Congress was ready to leave for Christmas vacation. IMBRA assumes you are guilty and you have to prove yourself innocent just to be able to say hi to a foreign woman via an online International Friendship Service. Along with having to provide the service your complete criminal background History including all arrests even those that were dropped, every place you have lived since the age of 18, etc. etc. and have your name run through the National and local Sex Registry, you will still have to wait for the Friendship Service to get written permission from the foreign woman (after she has reviewed your personal History) BEFORE you will be allowed to email her and introduce yourself! Welcome to Femi-Nazi America! Ms. Miller-Muro’s Iranian Religious organization, the Tahirih Justice Center in Fairfax, VA, will be getting over another $1,000,000.00 of your tax dollars to enforce this law and create more just like it. They already got a lot of your tax money the past 10 years. Bet you didn’t know that either, did you? Google IMBRA for one of the most un-Constitutional, anti-American and anti-male misandrist Femi-Nazi laws you could possibly imagine. MUCH worse than this TSA law or any of Bush’s other Police State attempts at curtailing our freedoms, right to privacy or freedom of choice. IMBRA – check it out and be REALLY disgusted! IMBRA
I have no issue with this new policy. I hear every day about people in other cities living in fear from terrorists attacks, look what happened on our own soil in NYC.
They need to protect our boarders better but if they want to screen people in the country then I have no issue, there are so many illegals already here….maybe they will catch more this way.
Some seem to think that if we just let the terrorist be , they will let us be. They believe you are the enemy, they would put a gun to your head without a moments guilt.
Maybe I am wrong and they are not living amoung us taking flying lessons, learning how to behave by watching American TV and planning on killing thousands of us….but if they are I want them gone. At least this crew is attempting to make a plan. If their rules do not suit you, instead of running your mouths about your freedom rights, why not offer intellegent suggestions?
The period for public comments on this proposal was extended to 21 November, but I’ll bet those who file negative comments on the TSA site get placed on the no-fly list. Lose-lose.
Something JFK said back in the day came to mind while reading your post. “Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”