Who Paid for the Airline Ticket?
Posted by Brian Bennett
A few weeks after discovering a terrorist plot, European and American authorities are looking for additional ways to expand the screening of international airline passengers. A new proposal by the Homeland Security Secretary would expand government access to passenger information from basic data commonly found in a passport, like name, nationality and date of birth, to other personal information such as e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, credit card information and related hotel or car reservations. U.S. authorities are already allowed to get most of this information from the reservation company databases to help look for people on watch lists, but the new proposal would allow the government to search not only for known terrorists on watch lists, but also for people who may be linked to terrorists.