A Peek At DHS's Files On You 241
kenblakely writes "We've known for a while that the Department of Homeland Security was collecting travel records on those who cross US borders, but now you can see it for yourself. A Freedom of Information Act request got this blogger a look at DHS's file on his travels. Pretty comprehensive — all the way down to the IP address of the host he used to make a reservation."
Re:Time to recycle a "meme". (Score:5, Interesting)
They have been placed in charge of thoughtcrime [ice.gov] and IP [ice.gov] enforcement among others.
Are [thesop.org] these [cnn.com] the guys [checkpointusa.org] you want banging at your door at random for the inevitable(give it a few more years) state-sponsored "health and wellness" checks?
Who can request that? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a shame he didn't explain how much identification was required to request this information and how well that identification was checked. I imagine ex-spouses and employers would love a list of where you've traveled and who paid for the ticket.
Re:I'm going to request mine (Score:4, Interesting)
Sent off for mine this morning.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was curious to see what was in my file, as I've had a devil of a time trying to come up with my travel via stamps in the passport. The airlines were not helpful past 2005. I sent in for mine, based on the notes in that article, like this...
and addressed to
Freedom of Information Act Request
U.S. Customs Service
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
Washington DC 20229
Re:Nice... (Score:3, Interesting)
Speculation.
Unfortunately we have no way of knowing. For all we know this information might have actually stopped another major attack or two, saving thousands of lives. Certainly some in the government would like us to believe that.
But the fact is we don't know and FIOA requests are unlikely to get us the answer.
Better oversight is definitely needed, but in the mean time we shouldn't assume this stuff has not prevented terrorism. Mainly we should just assume we don't know.
Re:"passenger activity" and IP addys (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's say the traveler cancels at the last minute, and the plane blows up. They go check it out, because maybe he/she was tipped off by a friend not to get on the plane.
I knew a guy who was supposed to be on flight 800 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800) but that morning he fell down carrying his metal trash down the stairs and injured himself. He went to the hospital and was OK but he had missed the flight. The next day the FBI came over and wanted to know why he had not been on the plane. He had to convince them that he had gone to the hospital. They went and checked out his story.
Re:Nice... (Score:5, Interesting)
Does the DHS have even one documented case of this information preventing said activity?
I doubt it. I drive through one of these [checkpointusa.org] about once a month and I always chuckle at the sign which reads "Terrorist threat level -- yellow".
I've ranted about them before so I'll just quickly say that they're there to catch low-hanging fruit like personal drug use and DUI to scare other citizens and fatten the county's coffers through citation. But I have a recent, true story to add:
A VERY law-abiding acquaintance(we'll call him "Jack") who is a retired State government worker was stopped at one of the checkpoints. They ran a dog around the car and the dog went apeshit. The CBP officers asked if they could search the car, even going so far as to say, "look, if you have something small like a joint, maybe we can make a deal". Of course, there were no drugs in "Jack"'s car so Jack told them to fuck off and get another dog. They did, and whaddya know, the other dog didn't smell shit and so they sent "Jack" on his merry way.
[tinfoil hat]They probably train a dog to scratch at every fifth car to instill fear among the others who have to watch and to see if they can generate an excuse to tear the car apart looking for bad stuff.[/tinfoil hat] And why not? It worked for FISA and all the retroactive "probable cause" bullshit associated with its gutting of our privacy.
Re:Measure of Effectiveness (Score:3, Interesting)
Granted, I don't find the TSA extremely effective per-se, as they let a caught a relative with a pair of 4" scissors who accidentally left them in her sewing bag, but then let her on the plane with them anyway
The TSA does more than check passengers for box cutters. This incident (besides being anecdotal) says nothing about the TSA, other than that one TSA agent is not a droid and used some common sense. As many have pointed out, the era of small melee weapons being effective hijacking tools is over. Seriously, what do you think would happen if someone pulled out a pair of scissors and said "this is a hijacking"? Remember Richard Reid, the "Shoe Bomber?" They had that fucker hogtied and sedated within minutes of smelling a burning match. The 9-11 attacks were only successful because the "aircraft suicide bomb" gambit had never been done before and people were conditioned to go along with hijackers and wait it out.
No longer do I need to keep my own records (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a saying, that a married man need not remember his mistakes — his wife will always remind him.
Similarly, there is, it seems, hardly a need to maintain one's own travel records (such as for tax purposes) as the Government will always be ready to mail a neat envelope with 20 copies...
The only offensive part here is that although — according to TFA: "Since 2002, the government has mandated that the commercial airlines deliver this information routinely and electronically " (emphasis mine), the records aren't delivered to the citizens neither routinely (only upon request), nor electronically (20 copies by mail?). Oh, and the request, apparently, needs to be filed on bad old paper.
Time for FOIA-2.0...
Re:Time to recycle a "meme". (Score:2, Interesting)
Every job, like airport security, that can be done by a private company, will be done better by a private company than the government will.
If you give a government bureaucrat power, it will be abused and expanded.
The Best that can be hoped for is for government to do a very few jobs, poorly.
Re:Time to recycle a "meme". (Score:1, Interesting)
>>And of course, there are the random "followup" visits, to ensure you're still a >>good parent. Once you have an open file with CPS, they can check up on you >>at any time, for no reason beyond someone wants to. Even if you were >>found innocent of the original accusations.
Statistically, you are correct. The GP is stating that CPS does not close cases, even if the parents are cleared of the initial report.
I have observed more than one divorce that has resulted in the ex making false reports to CPS, to "get even".
The question that should be discussed is how long should these cases be left open, if the parents have met the criteria the CPS is measuring the parents (repeatedly)?
Re:Time to recycle a "meme". (Score:1, Interesting)