U.S. demands air passengers list 3 days in advance

[Ace Pace]

Holy fucking asstards. There goes an end to picking up tickets on the last day at cheap prices.

Under new rules proposed by the Transport Security Administration (TSA) (pdf), all airline passengers would need advance permission before flying into, through, or over the United States regardless of citizenship or the airline's national origin.

Currently, the Advanced Passenger Information System, operated by the Customs and Border Patrol, requires airlines to forward a list of passenger information no later than 15 minutes before flights from the US take off (international flights bound for the US have until 15 minutes after take-off). Planes are diverted if a passenger on board is on the no-fly list.

The new rules mean this information must be submitted 72 hours before departure. Only those given clearance will get a boarding pass. The TSA estimates that 90 to 93 per cent of all travel reservations are final by then.

The proposed rules require the following information for each passenger: full name, sex, date of birth, and redress number (assigned to passengers who use the Travel Redress Inquiry Program because they have been mistakenly placed on the no-fly list), and known traveller number (once there is a programme in place for registering known travellers whose backgrounds have been checked). Non-travellers entering secure areas, such as parents escorting children, will also need clearance.

The TSA held a public hearing in Washington DC on 20 September, which heard comments from both privacy advocates and airline industry representatives from Qantas, the Regional Airline Association, IATA, and the American Society of Travel Agents. The privacy advocates came from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Identity Project. All were negative.

The proposals should be withdrawn entirely, argued Edward Hasbrouck, author of The Practical Nomad and the leading expert on travel data privacy. "Obscured by the euphemistic language of 'screening' is the fact that travellers would be required to get permission before they can travel."

Hasbrouck submitted that requiring clearance in order to travel violates the US First Amendment right of assembly, the central claim in John Gilmore's case against the US government over the requirement to show photo ID for domestic travel.

In addition, the TSA is required to study the impact of the proposals on small economic entities (such as sole traders). Finally, the TSA provides no way for individuals to tell whether their government-issued ID is actually required by law, opening the way for rampant identity theft.

ACLU's Barry Steinhardt quoted press reports of 500,000 to 750,000 people on the watch list (of which the no-fly list is a subset). "If there are that many terrorists in the US, we'd all be dead."

TSA representative Kip Hawley noted that the list has been carefully investigated and halved over the last year. "Half of grossly bloated is still bloated," Steinhardt replied.

The airline industry representatives' objections were largely logistical. They argued that the 60-day timeframe the TSA proposes to allow for implementation from the publication date of the final rules is much too short. They want a year to revamp many IT systems, especially, as the Qantas representative said, as no one will start until they're sure there will be no further changes.

In addition, many were concerned about the impact on new, convenient and cash-saving technologies, such as checking in at home, or storing a boarding pass in a PDA.

One additional point, also raised by Hasbrouck: the data the TSA requires will be collected by the airlines who presumably will keep it for their own purposes – a "government-coerced informational windfall", he called it.

The third parties who actually do much of the airline industry's data processing, the Global Distribution Systems and Computer Reservations Systems, were missing from the hearing. ®

[Spyder]

Does this just international travelers or domestic flights as well? I'm sure there are plenty of examples where someone will suddenly need to be somewhere else with little notice. Doctors, technical experts, businessmen ect come to mind.

[Aaron]

Funerals come to mind to. When my Grandfather died, I had two days notice.

[General Zod]

Does this just international travelers or domestic flights as well?

Under new rules proposed by the Transport Security Administration (TSA) (pdf), all airline passengers would need advance permission before flying into, through, or over the United States regardless of citizenship or the airline's national origin.

Looks like everyone. I expect a lot of angry customers over this rule.

[Gil Hamilton]

That's baloney. What kind of dumb logic is that to make people book flights more than 3 days in advance or they can't fly? What about emergencies and funerals and such?

[DPDarkPrimus]

So essentially, if your flight gets cancelled, you cannot get a replacement flight for three days.

Briliant.

[Sea Skimmer]

I have a growing suspicion that someone in the TSA really likes passenger liners and is going everything they can to make them come back into favor.

[Adrian Laguna]

The TSA estimates that 90 to 93 per cent of all travel reservations are final by then.

Do they think the other 10 to 7 percent are last minute vacation plans? A good chunk of the last minute reservations are important shit, that's why they're last minute!

[Pelranius]

I hope someone in the White House or DHS has a sudden attack of common sense, though with our recent luck...

At least it'll reduce green house emissions, I hope.

[Flagg]

The TSA estimates that 90 to 93 per cent of all travel reservations are final by then.

Do they think the other 10 to 7 percent are last minute vacation plans? A good chunk of the last minute reservations are important shit, that's why they're last minute!

They should have thought of that before deciding not to be born in America!

[Kanastrous]

The FAA will likely fight this tooth and nail. After all, their brief is to promote commercial air travel, and this is precisely the opposite.

[Adrian Laguna]

They should have thought of that before deciding not to be born in America!

Oh no, it's worse than that.

"all airline passengers would need advance permission before flying into, through, or over the United States regardless of citizenship or the airline's national origin."

The TSA are being equal opportunity bastards.

[Datana]

The article sounded fishy, so I read the document detailing the proposed rules myself. The 72-hour requirement is on page 48360 (don't panic -- the PDF is an exerpt starting on page 48355), and the requirement continues through a few more pages of details and justifications.

Upon reading, this isn't nearly as bad as some alarmists are making it out to be. The TSA is merely requesting a list of available travellers (that is, what the airlines have reserved up to that point) and their data three days in advance to help clear the backlog of checks and to streamline the current system of verifying passenger data 15 minutes before a flight. Last-minute tickets are still perfectly possible, and this system makes things faster and easier on the TSA to check up on such passengers, as they don't have to deal with everyone else at the same time. People who reserve less than 72 hours in advance will simply have their information submitted to TSA "as soon as possible" (page 48362, third paragraph). They aren't getting anything they weren't getting before, only that they have some time to actually process things and look up and clear potential false positives, which I'd consider a net positive.

Sensationalistic reporting like this is why I completely distrust British newspapers.