Super Fly

Next week, we're off to our annual family reunion with Dave's family, which is in Atlanta this year. I've started to prepare (mentally, as well as by packing my bags) for my next venture flying the unfriendly skies. As I explained in Fear of Flying, my flying phobia is not a "fear of flying," rather, it's due to the dread of dealing with airport "security measures" that brings home for me in a more personal way the fact that we have lost any modicum of our privacy rights.

That earlier post also described the harrowing experience of Edward Hasbrouck of the Practical Nomad, Unanswered questions at Dulles Airport, related to the need to provide ID to various "security personnel" at Dulles Airport, and the difficulties he experienced in merely trying to determine the identity and authority of those personnel. See also, Privacy advice to the Department of Homeland Security.

Hasbrouck has a follow up to his original post, Dialogue with the TSA Privacy Officer, which provides a response from Peter Pietra, the TSA Privacy Officer who looked into the incident, along with Hasbrouck's commentary and list of questions that were unanswered by the TSA Officer. A snippet:

[Pietra:] TSA requires airlines to request identification to confirm that the individual holding a boarding pass is the same individual issued the boarding pass.

As I reported, I had already shown my passport to a person who I believed to be an airline employee at check-in, and I volunteered to the person with the Airserv badge, and to "Mr. Graham", that I would be willing to show it again on demand of any United Airlines employee.

[Pietra:] It does not require airlines to prohibit entry to individuals who do not show identification but airline security plans may be more rigorous than TSA requirements.

To the best of my knowledge, I was never denied entry by "the airline", so this is of no relevance. Did you receive any information to the contrary from United Airlines, or anyone else?

[Pietra:] I find no privacy issues in your version of events. You had already shown identification at the ticket counter so you cannot have an objection to showing identification, (Emphasis added).

Do you mean to imply that, in your view of privacy, someone who is willing to show their passport to the airline must necessarily be willing to show it to anyone who asks for it? Or that a person who shows documents to an airline thereby waives any expectation of privacy in those documents, with respect to third parties?

Similarly, this report on NPR's Morning Edition, Cafeteria Workers Escape National Security Nightmare, provides yet another instance of the heavy hand of the security gestapo, as it tells the tale of two women who were longtime employees who were fired after they failed to pass a national security background check. See also, this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article on the incident, Homeland Security clears cafeteria workers after puzzling 2-week hiatus. The employees were deemed "unsuitable" and terminated, despite the fact that each had worked for over twenty year in the cafeteria in a Pittsburgh federal building. It took the intervention of their local congressman to determine that one report was the result of an erroneous social security number (which was the fault of Homeland Security) and the other due to not divulging a 1985 shoplifting charge that had been expunged. Sure signs of terrorist proclivities.

It's like the "No Fly List." You can't find out if you're on it. If you are, you won't be told why. Even worse, you may not be able to get off. See, the Practical Nomad, New York Times on "Getting off a watch list". Quoted in the NYTimes article, Hasbrouck states:

"The model is flawed," he said. "People should only be placed on the list based on an order from a court of competent jurisdiction following an adversarial evidentiary hearing. The burden of proof should be on the government to show that someone is dangerous, not the other way around."

These are just various examples of our loss of privacy rights. We may as well just send the Bill of Rights to the shredder. Under the new regime the rules have changed in a dramatic, fundamental way. In today's world, you are presumed guilty until proven otherwise. The problem is, you are not given prior notice of the "charges" against you, or an opportunity to challenge the allegations.

That's so yesterday. That's the old model of democracy. We now live with the New World Order: Just take orders. No questions asked.

Tags: Civil Liberties, TSA, Homeland Security