How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

http://papersplease.org/wp/2013/09/17/how-airline-reservations-are-used-to-target-illegal-searches/

by kafkaesque • 13 years ago

220 153 13 years ago

guylhem• 13 years ago

"TECS was the first pre-DHS database of Federal government logs of international travel. Several other “systems of records” (a term of art used in the Privacy Act) about travelers, including the Automated Targeting System (ATS) and DHS copies of PNR data (airline reservations) were originally considered part of TECS. The TECS file for an individual traveler typically includes a log of their border crossings (with record locators that serve as pointers to their PNR data ) and free-text notes on anything that customs and immigration inspectors thought warranted inclusion in the traveler’s permanent file."

Example on http://hasbrouck.org/documents/secondary.pdf

Is there a way to consult this database? (FOIA?)

It could be interesting.

useful• 13 years ago

It's more surprising that DHS keeps copies of the PNR data. The passport/visa stuff is acceptable but you can tell a lot more about someone from PNR data. Who they travel with, payment information, itinerary, changes in travel, medical conditions, baggage, services, it goes on and on.

sbarre2• 13 years ago

"DHS lawyers claimed that international travel provides, in and of itself, sufficient Constitutional basis for detention and search of international travellers and the search, seizure and copying of the digital contents of their belongings."

Really? Fucking hell.. With every month that goes by, I am less and less inclined to travel to, or do business in, the US..

edit: I'm aware that later in the article they say the courts didn't really agree with this, but it doesn't seem to be preventing it from happening, especially when, after they got what they needed (I call bullshit on "destroy all copies"), they just back down and convince the victim to drop the case.

maratd2• 13 years ago

Really? Fucking hell.. With every month that goes by, I am less and less inclined to travel to, or do business in, the US..

The insinuation being that the US is the only country doing this?

I hate this sort of thing as much as the next guy, but let's not pretend the US is the only country engaging in this behavior. We can certainly expect better, but don't blind yourself to the obvious. Based on recent events, maybe you shouldn't be traveling anywhere, period.

greenyoda2• 13 years ago

Indeed. David Miranda was detained by British agents in London.

carlob2• 13 years ago

Israel is pretty bad in this department as well. I hear that visiting Israel with an Arabic last name, or, god forbid, trying to go visit Palestine from an Israeli airport will land you in all sorts of trouble. In fact I don't plan to visit Israel any time soon.

I believe this is the sentiment of grandparent commenter, the fact that there might be other places where something like this happens is no excuse for a beacon of democracy such as the US.

BoppreH• 13 years ago

This doesn't lessen the severity of the issue.

And we can only avoid the ones we know about, so until further evidence appears the USA gets the spotlight.

sbarre2• 13 years ago

I wasn't insinuating anything. I said nothing more, or less, than what I said. Any insinuation or implication otherwise is of your own making, and is quite disingenuous I would add.

I live in Canada, so I'm on the border with the US, and while I have certainly travelled worldwide (including to some less than democratic countries), I have overwhelmingly travelled to the US, both for business and personal.

And over the last while, I have become increasingly uncomfortable crossing the border into the US, as compared to how it used to be, based on hearing more and more stories of detention and unreasonable search (both in the media and personal accounts from people I know). I have personally experienced at the very least a new level of hostility and aggressive questioning on a few occasions that I had not experienced before.

So certainly there are other countries where this type of treatment is possible at the border, but I am expressing dismay at the fact that the US is now "one of those" countries, when it didn't used to be.

And yes, "unreasonable" is in the eye of the beholder, but they're my eyes thank you very much, so I may eventually just opt out of visiting the US for any reason.

joering2• 13 years ago

The insinuation being that the US is the only country doing this?

Can you please make up your mind? Either Americans are "exceptional" and this is "the best country in the world", or not. If not then I don't think its okay to hate on others when they are upset with things happening on this soil.

As we all know things in US go downhill since a while. This issue would not suprise in Russia in 80s or on Cuba, but if US is exceptional then it will be judged by exceptional rules. In this case it shows US fails miserably on "land of the free, home of the brave".

ThomPete2• 13 years ago

Its not the only one but it shouldn't be one of those who do.

Go to the scandinavian countries and experience how effective, friendly and welcoming airport terminals can be.

United857• 13 years ago

Yes, and I think people forget this in singling out the US. Remember that the Five Eyes (US/UK/CA/AU/NZ) essentially operate as one security mechanism.

rhizome3• 13 years ago

Based on recent events, maybe you shouldn't be traveling anywhere, period.

So, one should give up their freedom of movement because "recent events" have caused institutions to implement policies to eliminate it? Also, "everybody's doing it" is a pretty distasteful rationale.

guard-of-terra• 13 years ago

It seems to me that US is one of a select few countries who actually employ a lot of people full-time parting travelers with their electronics and harassing them.

A lot more countries reserve rights to do so; US actually do it on a grand scale. That makes all the difference.

monksy• 13 years ago

I'm not sure that this is really the case.

I believe that it has gotten worse over the years, mostly due to politics and the fact that most people in the US do not have to deal with this. [We have a rather passport-holding-population]

AJ007• 13 years ago

You should never cross any border, US or otherwise, with a mobile phone, laptop, or any sensitive documents. Neither should your employees, if their device are user for work.

This is not a new revelation. Industrial espionage by spy services has been ongoing for a very long time.

mmagin• 13 years ago

How would you put this into action if you're a typical business traveler? It doesn't seem very practical.

ISL• 13 years ago

I often wonder what the founders would think of the modern interpretation of the fourth amendment at our borders.

How would they have chosen to balance privacy against security in our age?

rayiner12• 13 years ago

Considering the border search exception dates back to legislation by the First Congress in 1789, I don't think they'd have much of a problem with the current interpretation.

gwright2• 13 years ago

I tend to think that the notion of borders and jurisdictions were much more important and understood in the past than today.

Easy air travel and mass communication of all forms has blurred our sense of national/jurisdictional borders, but they certainly still exist.

Crossing an international border is something significant, you are leaving behind one social contract and entering into a different one.

dragonwriter2• 13 years ago

I think that many of the founders would probably be more upset by our reflexive resort to suppositions about what the founders would think in discussions of public policy than they would be upset (or supportive) of any particular policy that we find controversial.

anigbrowl• 13 years ago

Show me a country that does not reserve to itself the right to carry out border inspections (and if you're going to mention the EU, that change is only recent and by treaty, effectively making Europe into a single country of multiple states). As long as there have been borders there have been smugglers, and as long as there have been smugglers there have been customs agents. This is especially true of the US, because before the 16th amendment and the creation of income tax, import duties were a primary source of government revenue.

karambahh• 13 years ago

EU being "a single country of multiple states" is purely a myth. First, you are refering to Schengen Area, which is a subset of the EU. Second, and more importantly, several countries, such as France, keep "special cases" for border control within a 20KM buffer zone to the frontier. (and I believe a similar smaller range is applied to any train station receiving non-domestic trains). Look at a map of EU, look at France, and you'll quickly see that, with its central position, France is a basically a big "border control area"...

straight_talk_2• 13 years ago

Travel to US? Oh man, you don't value your freedom and privacy enough.

Mikeb855• 13 years ago

One of the many reasons I never fly to/from the US, and avoid ever passing through.

atlanticus3• 13 years ago

Canada is part of the "Five Eyes" but enjoy your placebo.

Mikeb855• 13 years ago

Yes but passing through our airports isn't a nightmare...

scott_karana3• 13 years ago

Most (all?) Canadian airports do not use neutron scanners, and have a traditional security layout. There is a lot less hassle.

snitko10• 13 years ago

I don't mean to undermine the effort of put into the lawsuit and this careful analysis. But... Shocking. Government has access to passenger's itinerary. I mean, with all the recent revelations, we might have just assumed that.

lisper• 13 years ago

You have missed the point. It is not that the government has access to your itinerary, it is that low-level government officials (apparently) have access to your itinerary with no administrative oversight whatsoever. The NSA at least puts on a show of getting FISA court approval. But DHS isn't even going through the motions.

The key passage from the article:

"The implication is that rather than search its own ATS database of copies of PNR data, the ICE investigator searched the airline’s own internal PNR database, using the DHS root access to the Sabre computerized reservation system (CRS) used by American Airlines. That was probably easier than searching ATS because the way DHS “ingests” PNR data from CRSs into ATS leaves the data less well indexed in TECS and ATS than it was (and still is — the airline sends DHS a copy, but of course retains the PNR data itself) in the CRS.

Notably, there’s nothing to indicate that the ICE investigator needed approval from a supervisor to go into Sabre, or tried some other source of PNR information (e.g. the internal ATS database of DHS copies of PNR data) first. Root access to Sabre was apparently at his fingertips, and his use of it warranted no special comment and no recording of compliance with any authorization protocols. It was a routine tool for him."

snitko10• 13 years ago

I, personally, have no trust in any government, so I sort of assumed that too. But that's me. I think you're right and it raises an important question for others, whether the government is really what they think it is.

shawn-furyan• 13 years ago

I think this even misses the broader point a little. For political opponents of particular government actions, constitutional protection against illegal searches and seizures do not exist if you travel internationally. Of course, DHS has been given extraordinary power when it comes to searches and seizure under the presumption that those powers would be used only to protect our boarders. But here they've been used to circumvent the legal framework for searches pertaining to domestic investigations, which exist largely so this sort of thing won't happen. The DHS has broken that presumed mandate, and abused its extraordinary powers not for heroic ends like the action movie cop that just wants to get the ultimate bad guy, but to harass people associated with inconvenient political groups. It's evidence that, as we might have suspected if we were more rational as a country after 9/11, that no government agency, no matter how noble its mandate, can handle the responsibility of being handed its own reigns. It's a clear indication that the full power of the constitution needs to encompass all government agencies and all of their associated actions.

001sky• 13 years ago

I mean, with all the recent revelations, we might have just assumed that.

Assuming things versus verifying things are two different ways to live your life.

rayiner12• 13 years ago

Uh, what exactly is shocking about this? The government has the right to know the precise identity of each and every person that's crossing its borders. It's also reasonably entitled to know the identify of each person flying into its sovereign airspace. How do you think they enforce visas and customs?

snitko10• 13 years ago

I would start with the question of why is it that people need visas. We live on the same earth. We should be allowed to travel wherever we want. It's ridiculous.

btbuildem• 13 years ago

"By agreeing to settle the case, the DHS avoided either any new appellate precedent limiting its borders search authority, or any judicial review of the specific basis for its actions with respect to Mr. House. As in other cases, the DHS treated the threat of judicial review of its actions as the ultimate danger to be avoided at all costs, even if that required destroying evidence it had previously claimed was vitally needed."

What a cancerous growth this DHS is.

dwaltrip• 13 years ago

While I can't blame them at all, it is too bad Mr. House settled. I wonder what would have been the outcome.

at-fates-hands• 13 years ago

I heard this quote earlier this week during a discussion about the failure to stop the Naval Base shooter. He should have been picked up or at least been on someone's radar well before killing 13 people.

"When we're watching EVERYBODY, you'll never catch ANYBODY." which made a lot of sense to me. It seems like these agencies are trying to watch everybody in an effort to catch one lone person without considering any supporting data. Thus, you end up with scenario's like this where innocent people are being caught up in this wide net their casting.

netcan• 13 years ago

This seems extreme but the reality is that foreigners and homosexuals are sketchy. This sort of policing is important.

jjjeffrey• 13 years ago

What's so sketchy about them?

bloodorange2• 13 years ago

I suppose you haven't learnt about the ghastly things done by the likes of Alan Turing, Stephen Fry and Neil Patrick Harris.

(If you don't get the sarcasm there, please forgive me and the gentlemen mentioned above too...)

unimpressive• 13 years ago

homosexuals

I can understand foreigners, but why homosexuals?

NPC82• 13 years ago

He's being facetious.

gcb02• 13 years ago

The focus on that article is silly.

Of course I want law officials to have real time information about travel and be able to catch a criminal before he flees.

The issue should not be that, but that they use that to initiate illegal searches.

The focus should be on illegal searches, period.

glasz3• 13 years ago

when was the last time a "criminal" was caught during flee-by-flight and the government was NOT involved in the first place?

gcb02• 13 years ago

This is my point.

This is like those dumb fox new things saying something trivial is a crime because it 'involved computers'.

They can already do that, but inefficiently by posting your pictures all over the place and having officers look for your face. AFTER they get a warrant or follow due process.

This is just a more efficient way of doing the above.

The focus should be on the lack of due process, not on the means being more efficient.

znowi• 13 years ago

questioned him about his political activities and beliefs

confiscated his laptop computer, camera and a USB drive

If this happened to a computer scientist abroad, say Moscow airport, there would be a storm coming from the western media about oppressive regimes and human rights. Possibly even a condemnation from the US government.

glasz3• 13 years ago

for the sake of simplifying my point i assume many if not most of you are us-based us-citizen:

whenever an issue like this comes up everybody starts to fight and nitpick. as if nobody can see through it. as if everybody is blinded. as if everybody doesn't care about the core of the matter. as if an entire generation or two is just too dumbed down to recognize the scheme.

you know, i love you. but i'm sick of you. if you don't fix your bloody country, nobody will do it for you.

contingencies• 13 years ago

The rough standard is basically that data must be provided by airlines to authorities at the point of landing at least 15 minutes before departure. In practice they probably provide it earlier.

I did some FOIAs in to this stuff with the EU recently @ http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/information_on_pnr_agreem...

My interpretation was that the picture the response painted was of five eyes nations all hitting up the EU for their passenger data. Right after the US got their claws in Australia was in there and the US utilized its grand experience with bureaucracy to ensure the EU Data Protection Supervisor didn't even have time to review the proposal before it was passed.

After that query, I updated Wikipedia's info over here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_name_record#Internat...

The lesson here is that you are wary of authorities for whatever reason (and we probably all should be), then you should seek to avoid pre-booking flights (or ships) ... just turn up and buy a ticket instead ... and preferably avoid long haul flights at all, certainly those terminating in countries with dodgy authorities, if you can afford to do so.

jevinskie• 13 years ago

Amazing! Thank you for your efforts into investigating this. I find the EU FOIA site fascinating and I wish the US had an equivalent.

dm2• 13 years ago

Any computer with sensitive files should have them encrypted, or preferably have your entire hard drive encrypted. They should also be backed-up in case the computer is lost, stolen, destroyed, or seized.

If a person or company keeps sensitive files on an insecure computer, then that company/person should be at fault.

If you send sensitive data over the internet then it should be encrypted. If not, then companies, governments, and other organizations could easily grab that data.

In reality though, there are millions of completely insecure computers and devices which carry data that could harm companies, individuals, or governments if compromised. Educating the operators of those machines and ensuring that they properly secure them is very difficult. The best method would be to have hard-drive level encryption on all devices, make sure people know how to properly backup data, and to educate people that they can easily say, "I don't know the password, I'm suppose to call my IT manager after I arrive at my destination and he will provide the password."

ballard• 13 years ago

To future investigative writers: Diagrams and acronym glossaries please. If a subject is hard to understand, unclear presentation is another barrier. (People have limited attention and thoughtspace.)

retrogradeorbit• 13 years ago

So this is the global stasi panopticon world that we are leaving our children with. It's just disgusting.

WildUtah• 13 years ago

1. Light-gray on black color scheme invites eye strain.

2. Bright orange link text is even more horrible than usual because of light gray on black color scheme.

3. Extra tiny font size (1em) is almost unreadable against black background.

4. There are constant readability crimes in the text with overuse of scare quotes, unnecessary abuse of the 'and/or' abomination, incorrect use of double scare quotes outside literal quotations, and overuse of parenthetical statements.

5. Use of "beg the question" to mean "raise the question" is incorrect.

The content was fine, but you'd better be young, brave, and impervious to pain if you want to access it.

How airline reservations are used to target illegal searches

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