Gov't Travel Records Include Notes On Personal Items, Reading Materials

Washington Post   |  Ellen Nakashima   |   September 22, 2007 10:17 AM


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The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.

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- Roger4 See Profile I'm a Fan of Roger4 permalink

The Privacy Act is only for the US Government and its employees. The US does not have a law on privacy for non-Government citizens. Seems like it would be good to have one, doesn't it?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:19 PM on 09/26/2007
- WilliamWallace See Profile I'm a Fan of WilliamWallace permalink

Sick, really sick.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:18 AM on 09/23/2007
- kmccaskill See Profile I'm a Fan of kmccaskill permalink

wow?

go to my site if you waqnt to see hillary clinton exposed as a liar and a murderer!!!!!!!!!!!!1

http://youtube.com/user/kmccaskill

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 03:48 AM on 09/23/2007
- OyVei See Profile I'm a Fan of OyVei permalink

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer.
~ Henry Kissinger

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:33 AM on 09/23/2007
- godlessclif See Profile I'm a Fan of godlessclif permalink

The Author of Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives wrote a book about his called This Perfect Day . I always wondered why it never became a movie? Too close to the truth maybe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Perfect_Day

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:04 PM on 09/22/2007
- lthuedk See Profile I'm a Fan of lthuedk permalink

Terrorism is a great gag cover for the fascist mob. And, it works well. Its all about protecting the fuhrer and friends.

Time for more leaks, patriots.

http://www.light-to-dark.com/deep_patriot_act.html

700 Neo Cons to go.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:59 PM on 09/22/2007
- naturegirl See Profile I'm a Fan of naturegirl permalink

Welcome to our Brave New World.

With all the illegal surveillance going on, we're just a heartbeat away from a fascist society. Does anyone really feel safer because our government is engaging in surveillance of every citizen's personal information? Not I.

If Uncle Sam couldn't manage to catch the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack (and these people were flying the planes, for God's sake!), then I have little confidence in the government's ability to catch potential "terrorists" flying regularly in and out of the U.S. I'm tired of hearing about how citizen's rights are being violated in the name of "national security." That term has lost all meaning for me. We need to say "enough."

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:36 PM on 09/22/2007
- cycle3man See Profile I'm a Fan of cycle3man permalink

KGB? No Surprise!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:23 PM on 09/22/2007
- burneb See Profile I'm a Fan of burneb permalink

As usual, officials of this mentality are claiming that they are "just trying to connect the dots," but they always wind up collecting so many dots that no lines can be distinguished.
I have worked with automated "match-up" type systems for years. If you collect too much data that is not clearly pertinent, your system becomes unable to distinguish relevant relationships from the irrelevant.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:11 PM on 09/22/2007
- T.Roll See Profile I'm a Fan of T.Roll permalink

Heheh, the moonbats trying to one-up each other with their handwringing histrionics. Cheer up. You'll only have to put up with this until the war on terror is over. Which probably won't happen in your lifetime.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:10 PM on 09/22/2007
- Veritas78 See Profile I'm a Fan of Veritas78 permalink

Watch "The Lives of Others." We have our own Stasi now.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:07 PM on 09/22/2007
- lisakaz See Profile I'm a Fan of lisakaz permalink

This is scary and disgusting. Land of the Free: NOT! You will be watched.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:09 PM on 09/22/2007
- NotaBeliever See Profile I'm a Fan of NotaBeliever permalink

Once a government starts doing stuff like this, it's hard to make it stop. Even if we vote these guys out of office, I don't know how on earth we can stop the bureaucracies and black ops they've installed. The Bush administration will keep adding new presidential powers until the day they leave town ... and even then, who will know what all they did? And who will know how to stop them?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 06:25 PM on 09/22/2007
- Canukistani See Profile I'm a Fan of Canukistani permalink

Not only is it hard to make it stop, but it's also hard to ensure that it won't be abused. That's one of the big problems of doing something like this even for the most benign reasons (and I'm not at all convinced that applies here). Once the tools are in place sooner or later someone will take advantage of them for purposes of their own. With the current political climate, I suspect that time isn't very far down the road either.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:41 PM on 09/22/2007
- outnow See Profile I'm a Fan of outnow permalink

Databases exist for class action litigation such as breast implant and asbestos where millions of persons are injured. These computer software companies found additional willing purchasers of their mini frame software programs long ago. These purchasers were your government agencies. And, it may surprise you to know, that these companies were owned by Republican "friends" of the Bush Family.

As these tools became available, it was just too tempting to put them into effect without a warrant or Congressional legislation. These tools have been refined continuously to spy on you and to make vast profiles on each and everyone of us.

The commercial use and the governmental use are now so overlapping as to be virtually indistinguishable. The data can be sold to companies for commercial use and also used for governmental use.

To "profile" an individual and his internet activities is similar to using Goggle but more specific. Cookies are installed on your computer and subtle Spyware is used.

Complaints from users of porn sites who keep being targeted by ads for Viagra are so common as to become a joke.

Big business, Big Brother, Big Government. Really all the same people. Privacy is gone and we are all an open book. The government is highly secretive, however.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 05:53 PM on 09/22/2007
- Roger4 See Profile I'm a Fan of Roger4 permalink

The Privacy Act is only for the US Government and its employees. The US does not have a law on privacy for non-Government citizens. Seems like it would be good to have one, doesn't it?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 05:46 PM on 09/22/2007
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