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."
It's the lying that hurts... (Score:5, Insightful)
Privacy Implications (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not a good idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, even if they lose 30% of their customers, the government will subsidize them for that 30%. Ahh...the wonders of...capitalism?
Airlines in an impossible position (Score:5, Insightful)
On a separate point, remember that an airline that is pressed by the Government to violate its passengers' privacy is likely in an impossible position: "turn over your passenger records, or we have the security people strip-search all your passengers at the gate and we start safety inspections on every one of your planes 5 minutes before departure. You'll never have a customer again."
Government pressure? (Score:2, Insightful)
They probably all did this... (Score:5, Insightful)
surprise, surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
That way, people don't have to be worried about "loopholes" in privacy policies such as the one indicated in a NYT article [nytimes.com] on the same subject:
The company said in a statement: "Our privacy policy commits Northwest not to sell passenger information to third parties for marketing purposes. This situation was entirely different, as we were providing the data to a government agency to conduct specific scientific research related to aviation security and we were confident that the privacy of passenger information would be maintained."
According to for example Norwegian law, this transfer would be unlawful unless the data subjects consented to the transfer.
Re:Privacy Implications (Score:5, Insightful)
But over 50% of the population have _already_ figured out that there's no difference between voting for the control-freak Democrat candidate or the control-freak Republican candidate, and don't vote for either.
Re:Repeat after me... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Government pressure? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Yeah, sorry I lied, but [big] brother made me do it..."
The article makes it sound like this was all completely voluntary though (ie the government simply asked for the information, no subpoenas and no PATRIOT act handwaving at how you can't mention that records were taken).
While speculation at best, it might be good to look into whether or not these "hints" you suggest were dropped.
Re:Repeat after me... (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not really the geek type, could someone tell me when geek == filthy leftist hippy started evaluating to TRUE?
I hate this world (Score:1, Insightful)
It is becoming accepted as 'not wrong'.
So who to trust? Nobody?
I've got something to hide. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Somebody needs to get their story straight (Score:5, Insightful)
why not you?
Re:For a good reason (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't agree, please post all you credit card numbers, with expiration dates, checking account number, with routing information, all logon and passwords to any thing you have. If you have nay children, please post there names birthdate, secret words, and schedules. Please post you employeer, employee number, annual salary/income.
Also please put a web cam in every room of your house so we can watch whatever you do. Be sure to post your drivers liscense information, all ID numbers.
So, you still got nothing to hide?
Re:Repeat after me... (Score:1, Insightful)
Get a clue...
They lied. Someday people are going to get Fried. (Score:5, Insightful)
Pure, and simple lying.
They lied.
Their sorry excuse ?
It sounds just like what Adobe was saying when they got busted for the Currency Detection Algorithms [slashdot.org] that they had added as (semi) spyware. And then of course we find out that many other Graphics Programs Vendors had done the same ...
Their sorry excuse ?
Really makes you wonder how many of these Corporations are already in-bed-with-the-feds ...
Is it already 1985 ?
Re:It's the lying that hurts... (Score:5, Insightful)
Depending on what happens to Northwest's stock price on Tuesday, this one may really hurt. Under the Securities Act of 1934 and rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder:
In practice, what this means is that if a company (whether or not through a director or officer) lies about something material to the stock price, people who buy during the period of market manipulation (essentially, from the date of the lie until the truth is revealed) can recover for their damages (generally but not always what they paid minus the "true value" of the stock when they bought it).Setting the "true value" of a stock on a given date, absent the market manipulation, is obviously an excursion into the hypothetical. One strong indicator, however, is how much the stock falls when the truth is revealed. So watch Northwest when the market opens and, if it falls a lot, expect to see securities lawsuits as well as privacy lawsuits.
Re:Privacy Implications (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Privacy Implications (Score:5, Insightful)
It's long been understood by leaders from the smallest tribes to the most bloodthirsty dictatorships that these sorts of means of control can be put in place by demonizing a small enough sector of society that a majority is willing to go along with the program.
Re:For a good reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Nixon jumps out at me, for some reason here.
Re:Privacy Implications (Score:1, Insightful)
Since I submitted this first - (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, this info is on 5 CDs. How can *anyone* believe that it stayed on those CDs, and din't make the rounds from FBI to NSA to CIA to DHS to whatever other 3 letter acroymn that is supposed to 'protect us'?
That information is everywhere you don't want it to be - and you won't know what they're doing with it until it bites you in the ass.
I guarantee that this will be abused - everything else has, why would this be anything different.
I wonder if good ol' boy George would be allowed to fly if the CAPPS2 system had access to his military AWOL status, his DUI, his credit scores, and his drug abuse.
Oh, wait. Invasive and ineffective programs like these are only for the 'commoners'.
Re:Who the fuck cares really? (Score:3, Insightful)
---
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.
---
Notice the part where they mention credit card umbers, addresses, and telephone numbers.
Notice, also, the implicit part in the way we *should* be dealing with rights management where the question is not whether or not I have a good enough reason to hide something, but whether or not the government has a good enough reason to requisition it. In other words, I'm not James Bond, but I don't fucking care -- because I'm not ObL either, and the government doesn't get to just willy-nilly grab my flight information. More importantly, Northwest doesn't get to willy-nilly hand them over because "it seemed like a good idea at the time."
Re:"Funny" (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can't figure out why that is so, then you really haven't been paying attention. Airline travel is not a right, and you don't have to fly if you don't like the fact that people are working to make sure some guy isn't trying to hijack passengers or bomb the plane you're on.
I'd really like to see you make a scene at the metal detector and baggage scanner and scream about 'police state!' there and see how far that gets you.
PIPEDA (Score:4, Insightful)
In Canada, the airlines would be liable for damages [justice.gc.ca] from every customer for this (assuming there was no regulation requiring them to share the information).
IANAL
PIPEDA [justice.gc.ca]
Re:Body Nazis? (Score:3, Insightful)
"politcally correct" bullshit was in place.
Second, If you'll recall, the planes had their designated smoking areas (called "the smoking section" back then) in the rear of the plane. There is a cabin airflow system in the plane, and I'll guarantee you it works from front to back, not the other way around. Those sitting in front had no problems with the smoke from the rear.
If things had progressed differently, the airlines probably would have been able to make a simple partition to ensure no smoke "leakage" occurred, but it was much cheaper and easier just to ban it entirely. Once again many had to suffer due to a vocal few. By now things have changed and the minority is now the majority, so it goes.
Re:For a good reason (Score:5, Insightful)
If the government/police want information on my habits, they better damn well be using it in connection with a real investigation on me, with specific charges. And this information had better damn well benn obtained via court order.
Re:It's the lying that hurts... (Score:3, Insightful)
In practice, what this means is people who buy during the period of market manipulation can be part of a class action suit, from which they'll receive a few pennies, and the lawyers representing them will receive several million dollars.
And before you start to think that I'm just being cynical, my part of the recent Schwartz-CitiBank $27 million dollar class action suit was a credit on my bill for $0.09. The lawyers got $9 million.
So watch Northwest when the market opens and, if it falls a lot, expect to see securities lawsuits as well as privacy lawsuits.
And even if it doesn't fall a lot, expect to see securities and privacy lawsuits brought by civic-minded **cough** lawyers.
Re:Fewer rights, actually (Score:2, Insightful)
Note that I said "protections", not "rights". It's an important distinction.
Perhaps ironically, the right to vote is probably the least important right a corporation can be given, since a corporation's one vote cannot stand against the votes of the individuals that work for it. It's probably the only right a corporation does not have that an individual does, and that is probably only because having it would not make any real difference.
Note that I said "protections", not "rights". It's an important distinction.
In any case, it's most certainly not true that if you take away the rights of a corporation, then you must also be taking away the rights of the individuals within. "Rights" or "protections" or whatever, when applied at the level of a group or corporation, only apply to individuals when those individuals are acting on behalf of the group, and most certainly when they are acting on orders of that group. This is reasonable, since people when acting as a group have much greater power than when acting as individuals.
It is that disparity in power that demands that corporations not be afforded the same protections under the law as individuals. This is especially true since a corporation is answerable only to people who, themselves, are immune to the consequences of any actions taken by that corporation, while the government itself is answerable to the people (or was, until the corporations got control of most of the information outlets).
As agents with great economic power, corporations must be made answerable to the people just as the government is supposed to be. That cannot be accomplished without reducing their standing relative to individuals, and that cannot be accomplished without restricting their rights and protections. Failure to do this results in corporations wielding much greater power and control over everything, including government, than the people do, as is the case today here in the U.S.