http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=540014.htmlWASHINGTON The Transportation Security Administration has said that it will require each airline in the United States to turn over records on every passenger it carried domestically in the month of June, so that it can test a system to match passenger names against lists of known or suspected terrorists.
The data that will be ordered varies from airline to airline. It includes the passenger's name, address, telephone number and flight number. It may also include the names of others traveling in the same party, meal preference, whether the reservation was changed, method of payment and comments of all types by airline employees, such as whether a passenger was drunk or belligerent.
The department placed several documents related to the proposal in the Federal Register on Wednesday, for public comment, a first for the agency. The transportation security agency is promising to listen to airlines, privacy advocates and others who opposed an earlier system.
"We're giving them a chance to comment on the order, which we almost never do," said Justin Oberman, director of the transportation security agency's Office of National Risk Assessment. "We want to do this collaboratively."
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By demanding the entire airline record, the agency will receive not only the travelers' names, phone numbers and addresses, but also information like "whether you ordered the low-salt, kosher meal and who is sleeping in your hotel room," said Barry Steinhart, of the American Civil Liberties Union. It was just that broad sweep that led the European Parliament to ask the European Union's highest court to annul a treaty between the EU and the United States for sharing information about trans-Atlantic airline passengers. The European Commission, the EU's executive body, and EU governments signed an agreement with the United States in May on sharing such information, despite privacy objections from Parliament. The agreement compels European airlines to turn over 34 pieces of information about each passenger.
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