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."
In a 40-word, separate sentence, the report noted that federal programs that collect personal data that can identify Americans "are required to be announced in Privacy Act system notices and privacy impact assessments."
TSA spokesman Christopher White noted the GAO's earlier conclusions and said: "TSA has already implemented or is in the process of implementing each of the DHS privacy office recommendations."
Friday's report reinforced concerns on Capitol Hill.
"This further documents the cavalier way the Bush administration treats Americans' privacy," said Senator Patrick Leahy, the democrat who is set to become Senate Judiciary Committee chairman next month.
"With this database program, first they ignored the Privacy Act, and now, two years later, they still have a hard time admitting it," he said.
The privacy office said TSA announced in fall 2004 it would acquire passenger name records of people who flew domestically in June 2004. Airline passenger name records include the flyer's name, address, itinerary, form of payment, history of one-way travel, contact phone number, seating location and even requests for special meals.
The public notices said TSA would try to match the passenger names with names on watch lists of terrorists and criminals.
But they also said the passenger records would be compared with unspecified commercial data about Americans in an effort to see if the passenger data was accurate. It assured the public that TSA would not receive commercial data used by contractors to conduct that part of the tests.
But the contractor, EagleForce, used data obtained from commercial data collection companies Acxiom, Insight America and Qsent to fill in missing information in the passenger records and then sent the enhanced records back to TSA on CDs for comparison with watch lists.
Eventually, the three companies supplied EagleForce with 191 million records, though many were duplicates.
This was "contrary to the express statements in the fall privacy notices about the Secure Flight program," the privacy office concluded.
"EagleForce's access to the commercial data amounted to access of the data by TSA," it said.
Australia has announced an agreement with the tiny Pacific nation Nauru enabling it to send hundreds of immigrants to the barren island. The deal affects more than 220 immigrants in Australia, including some convicted of serious crimes. Australian Minister of Home Affairs Tony Burke signed the memorandum of understanding on a visit to Nauru, the government said in a statement on Friday. “It contains undertakings for the proper treatment and long-term residence of people who have no legal right to stay in Australia, to be received in Nauru,” it said. “Australia will provide funding to underpin this arrangement and support Nauru’s long-term economic
‘NEO-NAZIS’: A minister described the rally as ‘spreading hate’ and ‘dividing our communities,’ adding that it had been organized and promoted by far-right groups Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies across the country yesterday that the center-left government condemned, saying they sought to spread hate and were linked to neo-Nazis. “March for Australia” rallies against immigration were held in Sydney, and other state capitals and regional centers, according to the group’s Web site. “Mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together,” the Web site said. The group posted on X on Saturday that the rallies aimed to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration.” The group also said it was concerned about culture,
ANGER: Unrest worsened after a taxi driver was killed by a police vehicle on Thursday, as protesters set alight government buildings across the nation Protests worsened overnight across major cities of Indonesia, far beyond the capital, Jakarta, as demonstrators defied Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s call for calm. The most serious unrest was seen in the eastern city of Makassar, while protests also unfolded in Bandung, Surabaya, Solo and Yogyakarta. By yesterday morning, crowds had dispersed in Jakarta. Troops patrolled the streets with tactical vehicles and helped civilians clear trash, although smoke was still rising in various protest sites. Three people died and five were injured in Makassar when protesters set fire to the regional parliament building during a plenary session on Friday evening, according to
STILL AFLOAT: Satellite images show that a Chinese ship damaged in a collision earlier this month was under repair on Hainan, but Beijing has not commented on the incident Australia, Canada and the Philippines on Wednesday deployed three warships and aircraft for drills against simulated aerial threats off a disputed South China Sea shoal where Chinese forces have used risky maneuvers to try to drive away Manila’s aircraft and ships. The Philippine military said the naval drills east of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) were concluded safely, and it did not mention any encounter with China’s coast guard, navy or suspected militia ships, which have been closely guarding the uninhabited fishing atoll off northwestern Philippines for years. Chinese officials did not immediately issue any comment on the naval drills, but they
RSS