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Government Privacy

The FBI Secretly Used Travel Company 'Sabre' As A Global Surveillance Tool (forbes.com) 74

Posted by EditorDavid from the seeing-the-world dept.
Engadget reports: The FBI doesn't necessarily have to rely on spy databases or phone records to collect vast amounts of information about suspects — it might just have to ask a travel company for help. Forbes understands the FBI is using info from Sabre, the world's largest travel data holder, to conduct surveillance around the world. Officials have reportedly asked the company to "actively spy" on targets, even while they're in the midst of travelling.

In December 2019, the FBI asked Sabre for "real time" weekly surveillance of an Indian fugitive, Deepanshu Kher, for the space of six months. The firm was required to provide "travel orders, transactions or reservations" for Kher, who was caught in January and placed under house arrest. The travel data has also been used to catch people like alleged card scam site operator Alexei Burkov [in 2015], according to Forbes.
Forbes calls that "one of at least four" instances where Sabre agreed to provide traveller information to America's investigators — with the others occurring in 2016, 2017, and 2019.

Sabre processes over a third of all air travel bookings in the world, Forbes notes, and the former CEO of Sabre's Mexican business tells them between 1995 and 2010 Sabre had one of the top two largest privately-owned databases in the world.

And citing former employees, Forbes also adds that "the same powerful trove of information could be used to help monitor the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic."
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The FBI Secretly Used Travel Company 'Sabre' As A Global Surveillance Tool More

The FBI Secretly Used Travel Company 'Sabre' As A Global Surveillance Tool

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  • news at 11

    #criminalslivesmatter. these people should be allowed to run from justice

    • One thing I've always found hard to understand is how there are so many tyrannical systems, how is it that there is any crime at all? Law enforcement must be really incompetent. But then you see so many instances of people committing crimes out in the open and getting away with it and you just have to wonder, is it all just theatre?

      • .... Law enforcement must be really incompetent.

        Yep.

        But then you see so many instances of people committing crimes out in the open and getting away with it and you just have to wonder, is it all just theatre?

        Yes it is.

        Having more invasive and powerful tools doesn't preculde LE from being incompetent and focused on useless drug shit or antifa or other stupid stuff.

        • As the cops say themselves, "we only catch the stupid ones"...of course, whilst it's popular here - and elsewhere - to dogpile on LEOs, let's not forget that most of them are decent guys dedicated to serving the community and risking getting killed for it...every damn day.

    • Did you know you're a criminal? Yes you are. We have enough laws that if I know enough about your life, I almost certainly have enough material to put you behind bars.

      The only thing between you and breathing through the bars is me not knowing enough about you.

  • I'm more worried by the fact that a single company somehow owns a third of a worldwide market, than by the fact that the police is able to obtain data from them. As long as their requests are limited and regulated by law I see nothing wrong with it. The problem if anything is that such a big database should not exist in the first place.

  • Secretely does not matter much (Score:3)

    by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Sunday July 19, 2020 @12:12AM (#60306097)
    The question is : did they have a warrant ? In which case renaming "obeying the warrant" into "actively spying" is bullshit. You have to answer warrant or fight them in court and why should Sabre fight a valid FBI warrant ? If they did NOT have a warrant it is an altogether different issue.
    • PNR.- Passenger name record. You know the thing CAPSS II forced the airlines to give access to the US gov until mit 2000. It is apparent from the forbe article this is about gathering info for an arrest warrant : "The latest order on Sabre also notes the company had previously complied with three similar orders to âoeassist in effectuating arrest warrantsâ".

    • Depends on who they were spying on.

      I don't know why US citizens spend so much time accusing, criticising and overall demonising China when their own agencies are provably so much worse that even what they claim without proof or balanceChina is doing.

      • The communist Chinese government is currently holding 3 million people in concentration camps, a million of which are Uighurs [libertyunyielding.com]. They're slowly violating their agreement to allow Hong Kong internal rule and common law freedom. They literally filter as much internet access as they can technically manage for content in order to keep people from talking bad about their government.

        It's easy to go on and on about the very public things communist China is doing.

        Compared to that, as much as the FBI has stuck

        • US government gives no shits about people in concentration camps. Your supreme leader, when told about it said "cool". This is just fake outrage to justify q course of action the US government wants to take. Much like the WMD were in the early 2000s.

          • The US doesn't have a "Supreme Leader". You might be confusing us with some other country.

            Meanwhile, Congress passed and the President signed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act [wikipedia.org] to identify people involved with those camps and sanction them. What more can the U.S. reasonably do about what another country is doing? You aren't advocating an invasion, I hope...

            • "What more can the U.S. reasonably do about what another country is doing? You aren't advocating an invasion, I hope..."

              Well.. for starters could just admit that they don't give a fuck.
              Or, they should cut all economic ties with a nation doing shit like this.
              And yes, they could invade them... just like how the police invade your home if there is reason to suspect that you are harming your children.

              Oh wait... I keep forgetting, you as well... only care enough about people when it serves your political needs a

              • "What must China do to warrant an invasion to put a stop to human violations?"

                What Israel is doing to Palestine?

                • Weak red-herring but lets play!

                  There is a big difference over two groups fighting over land and the subjugation and oppression of a group of people.

                  Palestinians & Israel on either side can leave the conflict if they want to stop fighting. Uyghurs can't exactly just walk away.

                  Your dissonance is fucking astounding! No matter which side of the fence you are on in regards to that fight, it's not even a close comparison.

                  And there has been tons of direct inference of the Palestine/Israel conflict by lots of

          • Fake outraged and Contrived drama.

            Gotta keep those taxpayer dollars going to the War Profiteers eh?

          • US government gives no shits about people in concentration camps.

            That's not true at all! They care! They care about how very profitable it is to put people in concentration camps, and are all in on doing it [reuters.com].

        • The communist Chinese government

          ...does not exist, by definition, since they have both a class system and currency.

          Anyone who told you China is communist doesn't know what communist means.

          • China is real life communist, in the sense that they are similar to all the other results of attempting to implement claimed socialist/communist ideals, not in the no true-communist sense of "no one has ever tried this version of communism, so all the real life evidence of the results don't apply and next time it'll be different."

            So if you don't like Mao nor Stalin's versions of socialism as the path to communism, you should probably at this point come up with a new name for what you think communism is supp

            • So if I hang a sign that says "ice cream shoppe" over an abattoir, everyone who sells ice cream is going to have to change what they call their business? How dumb.

              • No, but if every place which has the sign "ice cream shoppe" leads to an abattoir, then that's clearly what people are using the name for.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by majorme ( 515104 )

        I don't know why US citizens spend so much time accusing, criticising and overall demonising China

        They're scared

    • The question is : did they have a warrant ?

      They don't need a warrant.

      A warrant would only be needed if Sabre objected to the request.

      A warrant is not generally needed for the government to request information from a cooperative 3rd party.

    • The question is : did they have a warrant ? In which case renaming "obeying the warrant" into "actively spying" is bullshit.

      That is not the differentiating factor. The question is, was any applicable warrant granted on a valid basis, or were they just fishing?

      You have to answer warrant or fight them in court

      The headline says "The FBI Secretly Used Travel Company 'Sabre' As A Global Surveillance Tool". Whether there was a warrant involved is irrelevant to that assertion.

  • SABRE is ... more than that (Score:5, Informative)

    by Etcetera ( 14711 ) on Sunday July 19, 2020 @01:03AM (#60306165) Homepage

    Calling Sabre a "travel company" kind of under-sells the point. It *IS* the main reservation system for airline travel on this planet, and has been for decades.

    That's like calling SWIFT or the ACH "banking companies"

    And yes, of course the Feds will issue subpoenas and/or just ask for information. Companies are not prohibited from cooperating, and especially for international fugitives and suspects I'd be surprised if flags, watchlists, and active surveillance programs *aren't* set. How else do you think the "being met by the Feds upon arrival" stuff happens... serendipity?

    • SABRE ended up making more money than the Airline. It started as Command line CICS - nope maybe older ATS, mainframe COBOL. Then after 911, the snoops made everyone get internal airline visas. So the baddies just started using private jets, and cargo jets to move about. Mr Snowden was famously targeted - and we know where that leak came from, right down to international airspaces closing shut. Only he was not on that plane! The sad thing about Sabre is it did not do a Google and push/sell to known wealthy

      • The core Sabre system runs on IBM's z/TPF operating system and is largely written in assembler, with some components in C. It has never been COBOL and never been CICS. A lot of the newer components are on Linux, but the core still is on the mainframe.

        Source - I was the chief architect of their airline hosting business for a few years and worked for AA / Sabre for 25+ years.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by dpalley ( 670276 )

          Sabre is in the beginning of a multi-year project (in partner with Google) to migrate (offload) the mainframe to the cloud. It's a long time coming, but will be worth it in the end. There aren't a lot of TPF programmers around anymore.

          Dan

    • "How else do you think the "being met by the Feds upon arrival" stuff happens... serendipity?"

      This is all part of the reason I told everyone that laws describing their privacy and data in ways that makes them feel better is loaded with exponential amounts of bullshit. Every one of these laws all have the get out of jail free card of "necessary and in accordance or compliance with law" usage in ways just enough to let them do their jobs, but as you just made clear... since it is part of their job to share d

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      We need to stop using American banking services and make sure our financial transactions are safe from the GOP. A good start would be banning US banking services and hardware, followed by make it illegal to sell any banking technology to JP Morgan.

      Worked great with China, should be equally effective on the US regime.

      • What exactly worked great with China? Oh, yeah, I just read they freed the Uighur, apologized for destroying Tibet, restored Hong Kong's freedoms they stole last week, and are in the midst of making arrangements with Taiwan to return power to the government in exile there.

        *eye roll*. You can be so cute sometimes.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Whoosh.

          If you hadn't noticed I have always been a critic of US policy towards China.

          • I have noticed. I still want to know what worked on China? I've seen nothing yet. The only thing that will work is cutting them out of the global community. No more trade. No more buying their cheap shit. And so on. Just like the Cold War.

            And I assume we can both agree that nuking or invading are not serious options although they will "work" for some definition of work.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Can you cut them out of the global community? Is that possible?

              I really hope note because in the next few years China will overtake the US to become the world's largest economy by GDP. If being a large economy grants that kind of power then they could use to it cut the US from the global community, no more trade.

              At best the world would fracture into something resembling the cold war, forced to choose a side to trade with. Unlike the cold war China has a decent chance of winning due to a powerful economy and

              • China's economy is heavily based on trade with the outside world and more dependent on the US than the US is on China (if you go by GDP).

                Companies are already taking steps to move out. Japan just announced a $550 plan to help their companies leave China. The US just opened a facility in Colorado to produce rare earths. There's another in California that's.been mothballed for years that could be re-opened.

                The world doesn't need China nearly as much as China needs the world. If we went Cold War style isol

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      And yes, of course the Feds will issue subpoenas and/or just ask for information. Companies are not prohibited from cooperating

      You see, that's exactly why the European Court struck down the Privacy Shield laws. Because companies ought to be prohibited from cooperating short of a court order signed by a judge.

    • Calling Sabre a "travel company" kind of under-sells the point. It *IS* the main reservation system for airline travel on this planet, and has been for decades.

      That's like calling SWIFT or the ACH "banking companies"

      And yes, of course the Feds will issue subpoenas and/or just ask for information. Companies are not prohibited from cooperating, and especially for international fugitives and suspects I'd be surprised if flags, watchlists, and active surveillance programs *aren't* set. How else do you think the "being met by the Feds upon arrival" stuff happens... serendipity?

      20th Century Government Surveillance: Three-letter agency obtains warrant and searches travel database.

      21st Century Government Surveillance: Too-Big-To-Fail company provides permanent backdoor to Three-letter agency to guarantee tax immunity, regardless of warrant.

      As you dismiss this as "business as usual", it's best to remember what Century were in, and how "business" has drastically changed.

    • Sabre might have been the largest travel reservations company, but it's not in any way the *main* system. Amadeus is considerably larger, and there are a couple of other competitors.

      Companies must cooperate with subpoenas / watchlists / etc, and all all proud that they do. I was working at Sabre when 9/11 happened and things moved very quickly to supply as much information as we could to the government agencies that rightfully needed it.

      A.

  • So the chinese super-spying company is not called "huawei", it's "sabre" and it's not chinese either...

  • Sabre is obviously an enemy of the people and should be treated as such. You have my permission

  • I remember using easysabre in the nineties, where you could book your flights before all the other sites were invented.

  • FBI [or UK Special Branch or the Surete Nationale in Paris] ask Sabre via court orders, warrants for information on travel arrangements/bookings for certain individuals.

    At some point said individual books a flight to a country which does have a functioning justice system and an extradition treaty. Voila - said individual gets arrested on arrival at an airport.

    UK plod arrests people at the plane door every day at Heathrow : how do you think they sometimes find out they are on a specific plane ?

    Your travel ar

  • This is bad, but no surprise: https://papersplease.org/wp/20... [papersplease.org]

  • The FBI "asked" and "required".

    Which is it?

    I saw no mention of search warrants or subpoenas or court orders in the article. Perhaps I missed them.

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