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.
…The DHS database generally includes “passenger name record” (PNR) information, as well as notes taken during secondary screenings of travelers. PNR data — often provided to airlines and other companies when reservations are made — routinely include names, addresses and credit-card information, as well as telephone and e-mail contact details, itineraries, hotel and rental car reservations, and even the type of bed requested in a hotel.
The records the Identity Project obtained confirmed that the government is receiving data directly from commercial reservation systems, such as Galileo and Sabre, but also showed that the data, in some cases, are more detailed than the information to which the airlines have access.
But Homeland Security says it’s only going to retain your personal information for 15 years, so what the heck.
Though there is this:
A federal agent for the U.S. Department of Commerce is facing charges of illegally accessing computer information about a former girlfriend who jilted him and lying to government officials about it.
Benjamin Robinson, 40, of Oakland, was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in San Jose on one count of unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and another count of making a false statement to his employer about his alleged acts. Robinson was a special agent for the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Export Enforcement, Bureau of Industry and Security.
Robinson is accused of logging on to the government’s internal computer system at least 163 times over a period of months between mid-2003 and mid-2004 to track the travel patterns of the girlfriend who left him, and her family.