U.S. Government Wants Three Days to Issue Permission to Fly
October 14th, 2007Most Americans must be thinking something like, “Well, at least they’re not pointing the Active Denial Weapon at me right now. My TV works. Life is great.”
Via: Register:
Under new rules proposed by the Transport Security Administration (TSA) (pdf), all airline passengers would need advance permission before flying into, through, or over the United States regardless of citizenship or the airline’s national origin.
Currently, the Advanced Passenger Information System, operated by the Customs and Border Patrol, requires airlines to forward a list of passenger information no later than 15 minutes before flights from the US take off (international flights bound for the US have until 15 minutes after take-off). Planes are diverted if a passenger on board is on the no-fly list.
The new rules mean this information must be submitted 72 hours before departure. Only those given clearance will get a boarding pass. The TSA estimates that 90 to 93 per cent of all travel reservations are final by then.
The proposed rules require the following information for each passenger: full name, sex, date of birth, and redress number (assigned to passengers who use the Travel Redress Inquiry Program because they have been mistakenly placed on the no-fly list), and known traveller number (once there is a programme in place for registering known travellers whose backgrounds have been checked). Non-travellers entering secure areas, such as parents escorting children, will also need clearance.
The TSA held a public hearing in Washington DC on 20 September, which heard comments from both privacy advocates and airline industry representatives from Qantas, the Regional Airline Association, IATA, and the American Society of Travel Agents. The privacy advocates came from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Identity Project. All were negative.
The proposals should be withdrawn entirely, argued Edward Hasbrouck, author of The Practical Nomad and the leading expert on travel data privacy. “Obscured by the euphemistic language of ‘screening’ is the fact that travellers would be required to get permission before they can travel.”
Research Credit: PD
This won’t work because many business travelers & others have to leave within 24-48hrs, not everyone has their trip planned more than 72 hours ahead of time. The law probably won’t be struck down completely, but they will probably need to modify it.
It will be interesting to see within a few years’ time if regular people will start being denied boarding due to their “political views” which they will glean from spying on your Internet surfing habits.
\\MOD Corrected. Too much running around I guess. Thanks. -Kevin
The article says that the new rules say that the “information must be submitted 72 hours before departure”, which is 3 days. Did I miss where it said 5?
This is “staggering” news (gross understatement), even if it’s not “law” yet. The lack of input though, shows how little understanding there is and what the significance of this proposal actually means.
It need not even become law — the fact that they are now demanding this “authority” is significant in itself. Anyone doubting that America is now a full blown fascist Empire need look no further.
They seek to exert full and total control over the rights of ALL air passengers from ALL countries entering U.S. airspace, which negates the rights of sovereign citizens in their respective countries, simply flying from point A to point B (and having their own countries permission to do so).
No citizen in any country of the world should submit to this level of tyranny. All should refuse to fly on any American airline or over any American airspace from here on out. A global boycott of “American airspace” needs to commence at once.
This is the type of horseshit that the US used to castigate the former USSR for engaging in. I guess the US is now pursuing the totalitarian model, full tilt: restrictions on travel, controlled media, restrictions on free speech, and it appears gulags are in preparation for dissenters.