Government Permission Will be Required to Travel

Starting this year, Americans will have to get government approval to travel by air. As Privacy Journal revealed last fall, henceforth "Permission Now Needed to Travel Within U.S." Getting a reservation and checking-in for air travel will soon require Transportation Security Administration authorization. That permission is by no means assured: For example, if your name matches a "no-fly" list, even mistakenly, you can be denied the right to a reserve a seat on a flight. If your name is on a "selectee" list, you and your possessions will be searched more thoroughly before you can board. What is going on here?

All travelers will need government OK in order to board a flight, or take a cruise. What the government can allow one day, it can forbid the next.

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Spy Centre Will Track You On Holiday

THE government is building a secret database to track and hold the international travel records of all 60m Britons.

The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details for all 250m passenger movements in and out of the UK each year.

The computerised pattern of every individual’s travel history will be stored for up to 10 years, the Home Office admits.

The government says the new database, to be housed in an industrial estate in Wythenshawe, near Manchester, is essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration and terrorism.

However, opposition MPs, privacy campaigners and some government officials fear it is a significant step towards a total surveillance society.

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Big Brother, May I? Soon, You’ll Need Uncle Sam’s Permission to Travel Almost Anywhere

Last year, I wrote that if Uncle Sam gets its way, we’d all be on no-fly lists, unless the government gives us permission to leave—or re-enter—the United States. That day has now arrived, but in addition to obtaining Big Brother’s permission to travel internationally, a final rule pursuant to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s “Secure Flight” initiative says we must now get it to travel from state-to-state.”

For now, permission to travel applies only to air transport. However, the TSA could of course extend it to train, bus, or auto travel anytime. (Just imagine TSA checkpoints on interstates at every state border.) And, while the TSA hasn’t announced the effective date of the rule, it did reveal what information it would need in order to leave, say, San Francisco, to fly to Las Vegas for a weekend on the Strip.
At some point in the future, you’ll need to reveal your name, gender, and date of birth when you make a domestic airline reservation. The airline will contact TSA to determine if you’re cleared to board. If you’re on any of TSA’s watchlists (which include such deceased “terrorists” as Saddam Hussein, along with live ones such as Sen. Edward Kennedy), you’ll need to provide an official document acceptable for federal identification purposes in order to travel. Examples of acceptable identity documents are passports and the “enhanced” driver’s licenses required under the ill-fated “Real ID Act.” If you can’t produce such a document, you can’t board the plane.

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