Every Move You Make
Sep 20th, 2007 at 11:01 am by Susie
International travelers concerned about being labeled a terrorist or drug runner by secret Homeland Security algorithms may want to be careful what books they read on the plane. Newly revealed records show the government is storing such information for years.
Privacy advocates obtained database records showing that the government routinely records the race of people pulled aside for extra screening as they enter the country, along with cursory answers given to U.S. border inspectors about their purpose in traveling. In one case, the records note Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore’s choice of reading material, and worry over the number of small flashlights he’d packed for the trip.
The breadth of the information obtained by the Gilmore-funded Identity Project (using a Privacy Act request) shows the government’s screening program at the border is actually a “surveillance dragnet,” according to the group’s spokesman Bill Scannell.
“There is so much sensitive information in the documents that it is clear that Homeland Security is not playing straight with the American people,” Scannell said.
this is why I have never had a library card !
lucky for me we’ve got such great book stores
here in portland .
…it is clear that Homeland Security is not playing straight with the American people…
Well, color *me* surprised. Nobody could have anticipated that Homeland Security would lie to us about the real and imagined information it stores about us.
How many “nobody could have anticipateds” are there now, anyway?