
How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches - kafkaesque
http://papersplease.org/wp/2013/09/17/how-airline-reservations-are-used-to-target-illegal-searches/
======
sbarre
"DHS lawyers claimed that international travel provides, in and of itself,
sufficient Constitutional basis for detention and search of international
travellers and the search, seizure and copying of the digital contents of
their belongings."

Really? Fucking hell.. With every month that goes by, I am less and less
inclined to travel to, or do business in, the US..

edit: I'm aware that later in the article they say the courts didn't really
agree with this, but it doesn't seem to be preventing it from happening,
especially when, after they got what they needed (I call bullshit on "destroy
all copies"), they just back down and convince the victim to drop the case.

~~~
maratd
> Really? Fucking hell.. With every month that goes by, I am less and less
> inclined to travel to, or do business in, the US..

The insinuation being that the US is the only country doing this?

I hate this sort of thing as much as the next guy, but let's not pretend the
US is the only country engaging in this behavior. We can certainly expect
better, but don't blind yourself to the obvious. Based on recent events, maybe
you shouldn't be traveling anywhere, period.

~~~
carlob
Israel is pretty bad in this department as well. I hear that visiting Israel
with an Arabic last name, or, god forbid, trying to go visit Palestine from an
Israeli airport will land you in all sorts of trouble. In fact I don't plan to
visit Israel any time soon.

I believe this is the sentiment of grandparent commenter, the fact that there
might be other places where something like this happens is no excuse for a
beacon of democracy such as the US.

~~~
maratd
> I hear that visiting Israel with an Arabic last name, or, god forbid, trying
> to go visit Palestine from an Israeli airport will land you in all sorts of
> trouble.

I hear that visiting Arab countries with a Jewish last name, or, god forbid,
trying to go visit Israel from an Arabian airport will land you in all sorts
of trouble.

Any particular reason you're picking on one and not the other? A bit
hypocritical, don't you think?

That was the point of my comment. Let's stop now, ok? We're all in the same
boat.

~~~
carlob
First off both of what the sibling posters said is true.

1\. Israel makes big claims of being an advanced democracy, unlike the Saudi
monarchy

2\. I wasn't singling Israel in particular. I wouldn't visit Saudi Arabia for
the exact same reasons.

But there is another point where your parallel breaks, there is no way to get
to Palestine without going through Israel, so if you are a social worker
involved with the welfare issues in West Bank or Gaza, or even a Christian
pilgrim trying to go to Betlehem, you have no choice but to submit to the
ordeal.

~~~
greenyoda
_" there is no way to get to Palestine without going through Israel"_

Can't you get to the West Bank through Jordan and Gaza through Egypt?

~~~
azernik
The Egypt-Gaza crossing at Rafah is passable, though frequently closed (due to
Egyptian restrictions). The Allenby/King Hussein Bridge from Jordan to the
West Bank, on the other hand, is an Israeli-run border crossing, and it is
definitely the least inviting crossing I've ever been through.

------
btbuildem
"By agreeing to settle the case, the DHS avoided either any new appellate
precedent limiting its borders search authority, or any judicial review of the
specific basis for its actions with respect to Mr. House. As in other cases,
the DHS treated the threat of judicial review of its actions as the ultimate
danger to be avoided at all costs, even if that required destroying evidence
it had previously claimed was vitally needed."

What a cancerous growth this DHS is.

~~~
dwaltrip
While I can't blame them at all, it is too bad Mr. House settled. I wonder
what would have been the outcome.

------
at-fates-hands
I heard this quote earlier this week during a discussion about the failure to
stop the Naval Base shooter. He should have been picked up or at least been on
someone's radar well before killing 13 people.

"When we're watching EVERYBODY, you'll never catch ANYBODY." which made a lot
of sense to me. It seems like these agencies are trying to watch everybody in
an effort to catch one lone person without considering any supporting data.
Thus, you end up with scenario's like this where innocent people are being
caught up in this wide net their casting.

------
guylhem
"TECS was the first pre-DHS database of Federal government logs of
international travel. Several other “systems of records” (a term of art used
in the Privacy Act) about travelers, including the Automated Targeting System
(ATS) and DHS copies of PNR data (airline reservations) were originally
considered part of TECS. The TECS file for an individual traveler typically
includes a log of their border crossings (with record locators that serve as
pointers to their PNR data ) and free-text notes on anything that customs and
immigration inspectors thought warranted inclusion in the traveler’s permanent
file."

Example on
[http://hasbrouck.org/documents/secondary.pdf](http://hasbrouck.org/documents/secondary.pdf)

Is there a way to consult this database? (FOIA?)

It could be interesting.

~~~
useful
It's more surprising that DHS keeps copies of the PNR data. The passport/visa
stuff is acceptable but you can tell a lot more about someone from PNR data.
Who they travel with, payment information, itinerary, changes in travel,
medical conditions, baggage, services, it goes on and on.

------
Mikeb85
One of the many reasons I never fly to/from the US, and avoid ever passing
through.

~~~
atlanticus
Canada is part of the "Five Eyes" but enjoy your placebo.

~~~
Mikeb85
Yes but passing through our airports isn't a nightmare...

~~~
altero
Last time I checked airport security in canada murdered Polish citizen because
he did not spoke english.

~~~
Mikeb85
That's quite disingenuous... He was tasered and restrained because he had
become unruly and destructive.

Certainly the situation could have (and should have) been handled better, and
the RCMP should have only tasered him once, but to call it murder, and
specifically to say it's because he didn't speak english, is a blatant
falsehood.

~~~
rhizome
Last I checked there was no (official) death penalty for chair-throwing. Call
it institutional incompetence in de-escalation and maybe we can find some
common ground.

------
znowi
_questioned him about his political activities and beliefs_

 _confiscated his laptop computer, camera and a USB drive_

If this happened to a computer scientist abroad, say Moscow airport, there
would be a storm coming from the western media about oppressive regimes and
human rights. Possibly even a condemnation from the US government.

------
contingencies
The rough standard is basically that data must be provided by airlines to
authorities at the point of landing at least 15 minutes before departure. In
practice they probably provide it earlier.

I did some FOIAs in to this stuff with the EU recently @
[http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/information_on_pnr_agreem...](http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/information_on_pnr_agreements)

My interpretation was that the picture the response painted was of five eyes
nations all hitting up the EU for their passenger data. Right after the US got
their claws in Australia was in there and the US utilized its grand experience
with bureaucracy to ensure the EU Data Protection Supervisor didn't even have
time to review the proposal before it was passed.

After that query, I updated Wikipedia's info over here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_name_record#Internat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_name_record#International_PNR_Sharing_Agreements)

The lesson here is that you are wary of authorities for whatever reason (and
we probably all should be), then you should seek to avoid pre-booking flights
(or ships) ... just turn up and buy a ticket instead ... and preferably avoid
long haul flights at all, certainly those terminating in countries with dodgy
authorities, if you can afford to do so.

~~~
jevinskie
Amazing! Thank you for your efforts into investigating this. I find the EU
FOIA site fascinating and I wish the US had an equivalent.

------
netcan
This seems extreme but the reality is that foreigners and homosexuals are
sketchy. This sort of policing is important.

~~~
jjjeffrey
What's so sketchy about them?

~~~
bloodorange
I suppose you haven't learnt about the ghastly things done by the likes of
Alan Turing, Stephen Fry and Neil Patrick Harris.

(If you don't get the sarcasm there, please forgive me and the gentlemen
mentioned above too...)

------
snitko
I don't mean to undermine the effort of put into the lawsuit and this careful
analysis. But... Shocking. Government has access to passenger's itinerary. I
mean, with all the recent revelations, we might have just assumed that.

~~~
lisper
You have missed the point. It is not that the government has access to your
itinerary, it is that low-level government officials (apparently) have access
to your itinerary with no administrative oversight whatsoever. The NSA at
least puts on a show of getting FISA court approval. But DHS isn't even going
through the motions.

The key passage from the article:

"The implication is that rather than search its own ATS database of copies of
PNR data, the ICE investigator searched the airline’s own internal PNR
database, using the DHS root access to the Sabre computerized reservation
system (CRS) used by American Airlines. That was probably easier than
searching ATS because the way DHS “ingests” PNR data from CRSs into ATS leaves
the data less well indexed in TECS and ATS than it was (and still is — the
airline sends DHS a copy, but of course retains the PNR data itself) in the
CRS.

Notably, there’s nothing to indicate that the ICE investigator needed approval
from a supervisor to go into Sabre, or tried some other source of PNR
information (e.g. the internal ATS database of DHS copies of PNR data) first.
Root access to Sabre was apparently at his fingertips, and his use of it
warranted no special comment and no recording of compliance with any
authorization protocols. It was a routine tool for him."

~~~
snitko
I, personally, have no trust in any government, so I sort of assumed that too.
But that's me. I think you're right and it raises an important question for
others, whether the government is really what they think it is.

~~~
Amadou
That sort of cynicism is probably the chief enabler of such corruption. As
with any other human endeavor, government will never be perfect, but that
isn't a reason to give up on holding government to high standards.

It is reasonable to take precautionary steps in your personal life while at
the very same time demanding that the government behave such that those steps
are completely unnecessary.

~~~
icelancer
Some of us believe the government can't be "fixed." Who watches the watchers,
and all that.

------
glasz
for the sake of simplifying my point i assume many if not most of you are us-
based us-citizen:

whenever an issue like this comes up everybody starts to fight and nitpick. as
if nobody can see through it. as if everybody is blinded. as if everybody
doesn't care about the core of the matter. as if an entire generation or two
is just too dumbed down to recognize the scheme.

you know, i love you. but i'm sick of you. if you don't fix your bloody
country, nobody will do it for you.

------
dm2
Any computer with sensitive files should have them encrypted, or preferably
have your entire hard drive encrypted. They should also be backed-up in case
the computer is lost, stolen, destroyed, or seized.

If a person or company keeps sensitive files on an insecure computer, then
that company/person should be at fault.

If you send sensitive data over the internet then it should be encrypted. If
not, then companies, governments, and other organizations could easily grab
that data.

In reality though, there are millions of completely insecure computers and
devices which carry data that could harm companies, individuals, or
governments if compromised. Educating the operators of those machines and
ensuring that they properly secure them is very difficult. The best method
would be to have hard-drive level encryption on all devices, make sure people
know how to properly backup data, and to educate people that they can easily
say, "I don't know the password, I'm suppose to call my IT manager after I
arrive at my destination and he will provide the password."

------
WildUtah
1\. Light-gray on black color scheme invites eye strain.

2\. Bright orange link text is even more horrible than usual because of light
gray on black color scheme.

3\. Extra tiny font size (1em) is almost unreadable against black background.

4\. There are constant readability crimes in the text with overuse of scare
quotes, unnecessary abuse of the 'and/or' abomination, incorrect use of double
scare quotes outside literal quotations, and overuse of parenthetical
statements.

5\. Use of "beg the question" to mean "raise the question" is incorrect.

The content was fine, but you'd better be young, brave, and impervious to pain
if you want to access it.

------
gcb0
The focus on that article is silly.

Of course I want law officials to have real time information about travel and
be able to catch a criminal before he flees.

The issue should not be that, but that they use that to initiate illegal
searches.

The focus should be on illegal searches, period.

~~~
glasz
when was the last time a "criminal" was caught during flee-by-flight and the
government was NOT involved in the first place?

~~~
gcb0
This is my point.

This is like those dumb fox new things saying something trivial is a crime
because it 'involved computers'.

They can already do that, but inefficiently by posting your pictures all over
the place and having officers look for your face. _AFTER_ they get a warrant
or follow due process.

This is just a more efficient way of doing the above.

The focus should be on the lack of due process, not on the means being more
efficient.

------
ballard
To future investigative writers: Diagrams and acronym glossaries please. If a
subject is hard to understand, unclear presentation is another barrier.
(People have limited attention and thoughtspace.)

------
retrogradeorbit
So this is the global stasi panopticon world that we are leaving our children
with. It's just disgusting.

