Don’t look now — by which, of course, I mean do look now. Look at all the ink and airtime lavished on the titillating stories about the US Southwest Airlines threatening to boot a couple of passengers off flights unless they tidied up their ensembles. A student waitress had to tug her miniskirt down and pull up her neckline, and a man flying home to Florida had to turn his T-shirt inside out to hide its “Master Baiter” joke tackle-shop logo.
The US Department of Homeland Security and its Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have been going ahead with something that could keep a lot of blameless people off planes, no matter what they’re wearing, and might fill up dossiers with stuff they have no business knowing. Never mind cleavage top or bottom: Someone might be taking note of what we do in the sack, who we travel with, what we read and whether we belong to a union.
“Secure Flight” is the latest remake of a TSA programme that’s undergone as many changes as Britney’s hair. This time it would, among other things, make it the US government’s job to check passengers’ names against watch lists and then clear them to check in and travel.
Canadians are peeved: Some airline flights that merely fly over the US, without so much as touching a wheel to US soil, would have to fork over more information about passengers and do it as much as three days before the flights take off.
The AFL-CIO is peeved: A July 26 letter from Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to the head of the Council of the European Union raised alarms. Detailing new air-safety policies, Chertoff outlined privacy safeguards for any personal data about EU passengers that reveal “racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership and data concerning the health or sex life of the individual”. Since when is union membership — not to mention the sex lives of French, Dutch, British or Italian tourists — a terrorist risk factor?
Privacy advocates, already peeved by no-fly list mix-ups, are dismayed by Chertoff’s letter and Secure Flight. They wonder: Could all that EU data collection apply to Americans too?
Some US senators are peeved too: They ragged on a TSA official but good this week — why is the agency not inspecting a jet’s cargo as rigorously as it inspects its passengers and their toiletries? Why no security checks for foreigners repairing US jets in places such as Egypt and Singapore?
Finally, businesspeople and the travel industry don’t seem thrilled, judging from web discourse. The 72-hour government security check and requests for yet more passenger data will apply to more than just Canadian overflights.
Oh, am I busted. On my recent home-to-mother flights, I read Susan Faludi’s new book, Terror Dream, about post-9/11 America; the New Yorker with a piece on Jenna Bush’s first book; and a comic volume called Unusually Stupid Politicians. TSA is accepting public comments on Secure Flight’s latest plans; the deadline is Monday. Be careful what you say, unless you don’t mind getting home for Christmas ... in January.
LA Times
