To reduce the odds that terrorists will enter the US, the Bush administration is asking the EU to lift its objections to the sharing of airline passenger information with US intelligence agencies, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said.
On the fringes of a meeting of European interior ministers on Saturday, Chertoff argued that other countries, no matter how friendly, could not decide who entered the US. He plans to repeat the message before a committee of the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday.
"While we reassure Europe, we have to insist that we can't tie our hands in keeping dangerous people out of the United States," Chertoff said in an interview.
Under an interim accord between Washington and the EU, data that overseas passengers routinely give to airlines -- address, credit card, passport, phone and other information -- is now being used for screening on arrival at US airports.
But that agreement expires on July 31, and some European governments and data protection advocates have strenuously objected to what they see as an invasion of privacy and the possible misuse of personal information.
At the heart of the discussions between Chertoff and the EU is the issue of how Washington can screen passengers who as citizens of 15 European Union countries do not need to apply for a visa for stays of up to 90 days. The nations include Britain, France, Germany and Italy but not the most recent entrants to the EU, like Poland, Hungary and Romania.
The issue of British citizens of Pakistani origin has been of particular concern to Washington since the London transit attack in July 2005, in which three of the four suicide bombers were of Pakistani descent.
The British home secretary, John Reid, who was at the conference, said he was "opposed" to screening based on ethnicity.
The data system, established after Sept. 11 to build "risk assessments" of incoming passengers, runs the names of travelers and their data against lists of known or suspected terrorists.
A European delegate to the conference here said it seemed likely that a compromise could be worked out before the interim accord expired.
The European Court of Justice instructed the Europeans to complete an arrangement with the US by the end of July after determining that an earlier version violated data protection laws.
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