Northwest Gives Personal Data to NASA 440
Tree writes "Following four months on the heels of JetBlue's confession that they released passenger data to the Feds against their stated privacy guidelines, the Washington Post is reporting that Northwest has now admitted that they've done the same thing during a time period when they said they weren't. Nice. They were once my favorite airline."
Northworst? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not NSA but NASA? (Score:1, Informative)
Story History (Score:2, Informative)
"We do not provide that type of information to anyone," Kurt Ebenhoch, a spokesman for Northwest, told The New York Times in a story published on Sept. 23.
Article Text (site slowing) (Score:2, Informative)
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The nation's fourth-largest airline asserted in September that it "did not provide that type of information to anyone." But Northwest acknowledged Friday that by that time, it had already turned over three months of reservation data to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center. Northwest is the second carrier to have been identified as secretly passing travelers' records to the government.
The airline industry has said publicly that it would not cooperate in developing a government passenger-screening program because of concerns that the project would infringe on customer privacy. But the participation of two airlines in separate programs demonstrates the industry's clandestine role in government security initiatives.
In September, JetBlue Airways said that it turned over passenger records to a defense contractor and apologized to its customers for doing so.
Northwest said in a statement Friday that it participated in the NASA program after the terrorist attacks to assist the government's search for technology to improve aviation security. "Northwest Airlines had a duty and an obligation to cooperate with the federal government for national security reasons," the airline said.
Records included personal information
The carrier declined to say how many passengers' records were shared with NASA from the period offered, October to December 2001. More than 10.9 million passengers traveled on Northwest flights during that time, according to the Transportation Department.
NASA documents show that NASA kept Northwest's passenger name records until September 2003. Such records typically include credit card numbers, addresses and telephone numbers.
NASA said it used the information to investigate whether "data mining" of the records could improve assessments of threats posed by passengers, according to the agency's written responses to questions. At the time the agency also was exploring other possible projects aimed at improving air security, it said. NASA said no other airlines were involved in the project and that it did not share its data with other parties. The agency said it did not pay for the data.
Northwest said it did not inform any passengers that it shared data with NASA. It also said it did not believe that the data sharing violated its privacy policy.
"Our privacy policy commits Northwest not to sell passenger information to third parties for marketing purposes," the company said in its statement Friday . "This situation was entirely different, as we were providing the data to a government agency to conduct scientific research related to aviation security and we were confident that the privacy of passenger information would be maintained."
The carrier tells passengers visiting its Web site that "when you reserve or purchase travel services through Northwest Airlines nwa.com Reservations, we provide only the relevant information required by the car rental agency, hotel, or other involved third party to ensure the successful fulfillment of your travel arrangements."
Earlier admission
The disclosure of Northwest's participation in the NASA project comes just four months after JetBlue's admission of involvement in a secret security project conducted by the Defense Department. JetBlue conceded that it violated its privacy policy when it turned over records on 1.1 million passengers. JetBlue is being sued by passengers in class-action lawsuits.
The Northwest and NASA documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit organization that advocates privacy rights and open government. The organization, which provided the docum
Re:Not NSA but NASA? (Score:5, Informative)
double wrong (Score:1, Informative)
not that nasa wouldn't like the beagle to be found, but they're not the party responsible for it.
Re:Northworst? (Score:2, Informative)
The correct name is "Edward H. McNamara/Northwest WorldGateway, and Northwest airlines picked up a good part of the tab. It's only fair that they get to stick their name on it too. Were you so attached to the dump that was the old Wayne County Airport? Most travellers weren't, I can assure you (I used to work at NWA, in the good old days before World War II I/II started).
At any rate, it's rather disappointing to read about this lack of honesty on the part of NWA. Their PR folks claim that they didn't technically violate their privacy policy, and they're probably technically right, but it violates the spirit of the policy. I have a paid ticket on NWA in the near future, and believe me I'd cancel it and demand a refund if I had the resources to fight their system, but since I don't I'll just gripe about it on /.
Re:Damed if I know what I would do... (Score:2, Informative)
Great, maybe I can set up a hut in the flight path at JFK. Woo hoo, who needs to work!
It's the National AERONAUTICS and Space Admin. (Score:5, Informative)
Are they going to be sharing this info with the Martian Immigration Service?
NASA is the National AERONAUTICS and Space Admin. The space program gets all the press. But they do a LOT of work on all aspects of commercial air flight.
And while their work on cutting edge aircraft design (civilian, military, and research platforms) gets most of the press on their airflight side, they're involved in a lot of other stuff: Flight simulation, air traffic control, baggage searching devices...
And, as you can now see, stealth people-tracking databases for the "war on terror".
I'd suggest you contact your legislator if you object. But that might get me a heavy fine. (Follow this link [slashdot.org] {cloned from my current signature} to see what I'm talking about.)
Re:Damed if I know what I would do... (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe it is just my tinfoil hat, but I see a slippery slope with government taking away more and more freedom, while collecting more and more information on its citizens. Is that reason for alarm?
Re:Not NSA but NASA? (Score:3, Informative)
NASA said it used the information to investigate whether "data mining" of the records could improve assessments of threats posed by passengers, according to the agency's written responses to questions. At the time the agency also was exploring other possible projects aimed at improving air security...
Interesting how a seemingly unrelated government entity can become part of the story. Whether or not this experiment panned out, the decision to do this does show some creative thinking. Cool.
But then again, NASA is a military resouce at times, so maybe this isn't such a suprising development.
wbs.
Re:Privacy Implications (Score:3, Informative)
Web feedback form: http://www.nwa.com/cgi-bin/gen_misc.pl [nwa.com]
This won't work (Score:2, Informative)
The only way I could see this being used is to look at who gets drunk and causes problems on flights (I assume that airlines keep information on this) and place extra staff on flights with a high number of these types of people and while that's not a bad idea it's hardly "a matter of national security"
Re:CIA has nothing to do with Al Quada (Score:3, Informative)
Osama Bin Laden: How the U.S. Helped Midwife a Terrorist [public-i.org].
Re:Bush AWOL ! OT like a mo-fo. (Score:5, Informative)
DUI [thesmokinggun.com]
Cocaine (from a right wing puplication!) [216.239.41.104]
I'm sure you can find more sources if you look, I just went as fast I could, and tried to pick sources that are generally trusted to be accurate.
There will always be those who say 'if the records aren't there, how can it be true?', but when you are in charge of who keeps them, where they are kept, and who has access to them, you can certainly manipulate them.
Does the head IT guy at a company ever get busted for looking at porn?...
Re:So wrong? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, he did, unless by "NOT get a majority" you really meant "NOT NOT get a majority".
Clinton won the majority during BOTH the 1992 and 1996 elections, in both the popular election and electoral colleges. Let's review:
During the 1992 election [uselectionatlas.org], Clinton received 43% of the popular votes, and 68.8% of the electoral college. Bush lost because he received less votes then Clinton, 37.45% of the total, and 31.2% electoral college. Clinton won the majority.
In 1996 [uselectionatlas.org], Clinton received 49.24% of the popular votes, and 70.4% of the electoral system. Dole received 40.71% of the popular votes, and 29.6% in the electoral college. Again, Clinton won the majority.
By all counts, Clinton won the majority vote in both elections.
Let's compare that to the 2000 election [uselectionatlas.org], where Gore received a 48.38% majority of the popular vote, but only 49.4% of the electoral college. Bush lost the popular election, with a 47.87% minority, but he won in the electoral college with 50.4% of the electoral college.
Clinton did not get a majority. (Score:0, Informative)
No, read it: "Clinton did not get a majority" in either election. Please check the facts on this. He got less than 50%. You can't get a majority that way.
Clinton won the majority during BOTH the 1992 and 1996 elections.... Let's review: During the 1992 election, Clinton received 43% of the popular votes
You make my case. A majority is in fact "The greater number or part; a number more than half of the total". 43% is less than half.
"1996, Clinton received 49.24% of the popular votes"
Still short of a majority, but by a smaller margin.
By all counts, Clinton won the majority vote in both elections
By the counts you present (which I will not contest), Clinton did not have a majority in either election.
Let's compare that to the 2000 election, where Gore received a 48.38% majority of the popular vote, but only 49.4% of the electoral college. Bush lost the popular election, with a 47.87% minority
So? Bush, Gore, and Clinton did not get a majority. All of the totals you mention are short of the 50% which is required.
Re:So wrong? (Score:2, Informative)
methinks the parent doesn't know the difference between "majority" and "plurality."
Canadian Laws (Score:5, Informative)
It sounds like such a law could be useful for you Americans right now..
Re:Not NSA but NASA? (Score:5, Informative)
One of the cool programs that NASA Ames (at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Silicon Valley) has is the Aviation Safety Reporting Program [nasa.gov] for crew. If there's a safety issue on any flight, crew members are encouraged to send in an ASRS report. If you screw up in some way and cause an unsafe condition, and file an ASRS report, you get immunity from any FAA enforcement action [nasa.gov] related to the incident. Anonymised versions of these incidents are available in the ASRS newsletter "Callback." This program has done many orders of magnitude more for safety than any TSA Code Yella (or whatever the hell it is today) ever did.
Of course this present hysteria-driven incident is repugnant. There is no way to be utterly safe, and infringing on citizens' privacy for some dubious profiling benefit is complete crap. I don't see how it's even constitutional to require gummint-issued photo ID from passengers. In a free society one is not expected to have "papers" to move about in one's own country. It doesn't even increase security: any high-school kid will be able to tell you how to get a fake drivers' license.
Re:Not NSA but NASA? (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting how a seemingly unrelated government entity can become part of the story.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA is, undoubtedly, most well known for its space initiatives. However, they have their fingers in everything from complicated probes on other planets to medicine here on earth. They help develop commercial technology that you use every day of your life and they do cutting edge research into any number of scientific fields that you may well not hear about for another decade or more, if ever.
Frankly, NASA is probably second only to FEMA for underestimation of agency influence within the country. Those two agencies are either known only for very specific things, or never even thought about, but they have exceptionally broad, far-reaching powers and their fingers are in pretty much anything you can think of, even if you don't notice it.
Re:So wrong? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not NSA but NASA? (Score:1, Informative)
My bad experiences with NW (Score:1, Informative)
They made me go through a lot of unnecessary administrative tasks (i.e. I needed to go down to their office and show up in person) to get my seats upgraded (from Asia to the US) instead of being able to do it through phone calls or through their frequent flier website.
They refused to upgrade my seats (from US to Asia) claiming that the business class seats were fully booked but when I boarded the plane, nearly the entire business class seats was empty (there were a few chaps). The lady sitting next to me was fuming as well as she had requested for the same upgrade and was given the same excuse. She had experienced DVT in the past and had told them of her medical condition. The flight stewardesses/stewards told her it wasn't possible to move her up despite her problems during the course of the flight.
They cancelled a flight which I had booked ahead of time without informing me or my travel agent of the changes (USA to Asia) and I only found out about it when I tried to arrange for a change:
Operator - "Sir, I'm afraid there's no such flight"
Me - "But I printed the confirmation from your website!"
Operator - "Sir, there is no such flight... but I could put you on Flight XXX at no extra charge"
Jeepers! Needless to say, they've lost ME as their customer.