03 October 2005

by Anai Rhoads

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AnaiRhoads.org - The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has sidelined its plans to implement pre-screening of airline passengers, admitting privacy violations.

The agency admitted wrongdoing in June shortly after the Department of Homeland Security Privacy Office had announced that it was investigating them for violations of the Privacy Act of 1974. The organisation was in breach of key provisions of the Act during testing of its Secure Flight programme. The TSA reluctantly disclosed that it had already collected - and even maintained - information about thousands of passengers, despite saying it would never do so in an order sent out late 2004.

Secure Flight was created to "weed out" passengers deemed potentionally dangerous by examining their backgrounds against data gathered by the Terrorist Screening Center. In addition to comparing this data, EagleForce Associates, Inc. was also contracted to verify travel information through InsightAmerica, Acxiom, and Qwest.

Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained detailed documents that show how Acxiom attempted to lessen the restrictions days after the terrorist acts on September 11, 2001.

According to EPIC the TSA ordered 72 commercial airlines to hand over all passenger records in June 2004.

Although Secure Flight has had several setbacks with regards to privacy violations, the agency is hopeful that the programme will be implimented and used on travelers by the end of the year.

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