A massive aviation industry clearinghouse that processes data for twelve billion passenger flights per year is selling that information to the Trump administration amid the White House’s new immigration crackdown, according to documents reviewed by the Lever.
The data — including “full flight itineraries, passenger name records, and financial details, which are otherwise difficult or impossible to obtain” for past and future flights — is fed into a secretive government intelligence operation called the Travel Intelligence Program and provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies, records reveal.
Details of this program were outlined in procurement documents released Wednesday by ICE, which is a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
Since when does a government agency have to pay for receiving a companies data? I guess there is no law for allowing ICE to access that data, and then they just pay instead?
If I had to guess, obtaining the data by force may require a court order or legal process.
Buying data that someone else is willingly selling bypasses those steps.
Any reasonable court would equate requiring a warrant and requiring payment in the context of the 4th amendment (and similar rights/laws in other countries).
I would think and hope that, but evidence tends to point to the contrary.
A quick search brings up multiple articles including:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/nsa-finally-admits-to-spying-on-americans-by-purchasing-sensitive-data/
Guess those EULAS we all agreed to but never read had some sneaky language about what they can do with the data.
Yeah that’s one of the things that stood out as what the hell… the companies already have the data, if ICE wanted it legally they shouldn’t need to pay… Really shows how shady they’re being.
At least for foreigners travelling into the US, you’re willingly giving the US govt most of this information up front anyway via the APIS. And paying for the privilege!
Well you could have easily not fucking come here.
Americans are just fucked (and they stole the election so we get to be hated for voting for him while we didn’t even vote for him, our allies have every excuse not to lift a finger to care. Really convenient.)
Unless of course you’re forced to, like for your job. My place would have little to zero sympathy for my personal reasons not to travel unless it’s on a govt advisory not to.