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Travel Overseas and the Government is Watching You
My doctor's office has a file on me. So does the dentist, my employers, my credit card company, my bank, my health club and I'm sure a bunch more. I just found out that the file the U.S. government has on me might be bigger than I thought. Any American who has traveled outside the U.S. since 2002, whether they flew, drove, or took a cruise, has had their trips monitored.
The Automated Targeting System, part of Homeland Security, has been doing its monitoring thing since the 1990s, but in recent years the information that is gathered has grown. Because of technology and automation, info can be culled from places like commercial reservation systems.
The idea, of course, is to separate those who are simply traveling for whatever non-threatening reason from those who are doing illegal activity or who are possible threats. If you are pulled aside for more screening, your file could get bigger with more information. One guy, whose case is written about in this recent article, found out that his file listed Drugs and Your Rights, a book he was traveling with.
Here is the typical information in that can be found in people's files. Currently, information is kept for 15 years.
- names
- addresses
- credit card information
- phone and email contacts
- itineraries
- hotel and car reservations
As you can imagine, there is a debate about this tracking system. Perhaps, though, it might come in handy. For example, let's say you are trying to figure out the exact dates of that trip to Borneo that you took years ago. You're finally putting together a trip scrapbook and the details you remember are fuzzy. If you contacted the folks watching over the Automated Targeting System, I wonder if they would let you know the dates of your trip and the name of that neat hotel you stayed in as well? By, the way, I'm kidding. I'm not sure what I think of this system. Governments like Singapore's have kept track of their citizens for years.
Filed under: Activism, Stories, Airlines, Transportation
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jon Sep 23rd 2007 9:12PM
"The idea, of course, is to separate those who are simply traveling for whatever non-threatening reason from those who are doing illegal activity or who are possible threats"
Nice bit of rationalising and enabling there.
Never mind about small details like 'innocent until proven guilty' and freedom of movement and assembly and all those good things.
Deb Sep 24th 2007 12:17PM
Another reason for me to be glad I'm not American.
Deb