From a chilling front-page story in the Washington Post by Ellen Nakashima: “The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.” That group is the Identity Project, which obtained and revealed the government-gathered documents. 

Among the other information found in the documents: race and emergency contact phone numbers.

The tracking of travel companions—or perceived companions—is potentially the most invasive part of the government program, Edward Hasbrouck, author of “The Practical Nomad” and a civil liberties activist, told the Post. “It’s that lifetime log of everywhere you go that can be correlated with other people’s movements that’s most dangerous,” he said. “If you sat next to someone once, that’s a coincidence. If you sat next to them twice, that’s a relationship.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defended the Automated Targeting System, which it uses to screen passengers and gather data.

From Nakashima’s Post story:

DHS officials said this week that the government is not interested in passengers’ reading habits, that the program is transparent, and that it affords redress for travelers who are inappropriately stymied. “I flatly reject the premise that the department is interested in what travelers are reading,” DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said. “We are completely uninterested in the latest Tom Clancy novel that the traveler may be reading.”

But, Knocke said, “if there is some indication based upon the behavior or an item in the traveler’s possession that leads the inspection officer to conclude there could be a possible violation of the law, it is the front-line officer’s duty to further scrutinize the traveler.” Once that happens, Knocke said, “it is not uncommon for the officer to document interactions with a traveler that merited additional scrutiny.”

The program has been in use for more than a decade, Nakashima reports, but “data for the system in recent years have been collected by the government from more border points, and also provided by airlines—under U.S. government mandates—through direct electronic links that did not previously exist.”

Related on World Hum:
* TSA Deploys ‘Behavior Detection Officers’ at U.S. Airports
* Interview With TSA Chief Kip Hawley
* Full-Body X-Ray Security Scanner Debuts

Photo by omk_489 via Flickr, (Creative Commons).