The Van Halen was right :) BAHA Fan of the video clip of "right Now!" -----Original Message----- From: The Airline List [mailto:AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of mgreenwood@xxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 12:48 PM To: AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: More U.S. Airlines Gave Passenger Data WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More airlines than originally thought secretly provided passenger data for a U.S. government screening system in possible violation of privacy laws, the Bush administration said on Wednesday. Two big reservation systems also provided names, addresses, credit card numbers and other data, said the Transportation Security Administration's acting administrator, David Stone. America West, Frontier Airlines, Continental Airlines, and the Sabre and Galileo International reservation systems gave passenger data to the TSA or companies working for the agency in 2002 and 2003, Stone said in a signed affidavit released at his Senate confirmation hearing to head the agency. JetBlue, American Airlines and Northwest Airlines have previously disclosed that they also shared passenger records with government researchers, despite promises to keep them private. Delta Air Lines provided artificial passenger records but asked for them to be deleted five days later, Stone said. The TSA also ordered Delta to provide passenger records to the U.S. Secret Service during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, he said. Response from companies named in the report was varied. Frontier, America West, and Continental said the passenger records were protected by nondisclosure agreements and destroyed when testing was finished. Delta said it had no choice but to comply with government requests. Galileo denied that it had ever shared data for the screening project, while Sabre said the data it provided was never used and was returned on request. PUBLIC NOTIFICATION REQUIRED Under a 1974 privacy law, government agencies and contractors are required to notify the public when they collect personal information. Lockheed Martin Corp., HNC Software Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Infoglide, and Ascent Technology collected passenger data to develop screening prototypes, but TSA officials determined that public notice was not needed, Stone said. "Since the information was not to be accessed or retrieved by name or personal identifier to make individual determinations, TSA believed that it did not need to publish a system of records notice under the Privacy Act," he said. Government officials did not see passenger names and itineraries but did view presentations based on the data, Stone said. Agency employees have since undergone privacy training, he said. The second-generation Computer Assisted Passenger Profiling System, or CAPPS II, would run a background check on anybody who buys a ticket in an effort to find possible hijackers. Privacy concerns have delayed development of the system, which officials had hoped to have in place by January 2004. Lawmakers on the Governmental Affairs Committee said they were disturbed that passenger data was passed around without clear guidelines or public notice. "If TSA is to move ahead with this new system, it must ensure that data are obtained in a way that protects privacy and ensures public trust in the process," said Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who chairs the committee. One prominent critic said only the courts could be trusted to oversee the system. "Administration officials have been lying to the American public, they've been lying to journalists, it very much appears to me that they lied to congressional investigators," said privacy activist Bill Scannell, who is involved with an Alaska lawsuit challenging the screening system.