TheAgitator.com
Jet Blue
Wednesday, September 17th, 2003If this is true, it’s the best argument yet against those that say “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear”.
Read the story, and you can infer the rest of my comments. Assume there would be MANY expletives.
Preventing flight (and all other means of escape)
I can’t think of a better reason not to fly than this (link from Radley Balko). Jet Blue shared “confidential” records on 5 million passengers with the federal government, which in turn fed them to private contractors, which then sifted…
As one who has made that argument I must say that this program sucks. I know we need to improve security post 9/11, but there’s no doubt that this crosses the line. My only problem is distinguishing where the line is. Some would argue that any profiling is wrong and I definately disagree with that.
If this is the direction the Patriot Act continues in then I’m a convert to the anti side. The only problem is I haven’t heard any coherent policies put forward by our “leaders” that would solve the security problems without completely invading our lives. Most of the criticisms of Patriot are just that with no alternatives.
Maybe I have missed them. Is there anyone with a workable and acceptable policy out there?
Silly people say “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear”
But it’d be more realistically phrased as:
“If you’ve done nothing wrong, and nobody else does something wrong, you have nothing to fear.”
It takes an awful lot of trust to think you have nothing to fear. Especially considering that these databases will almost certainly be opened up more broadly than you’d want.
As far as I know there’s no law against a private company voluntarily turning over their customer info to anyone, including the government. Should there be?
I don’t much doubt JetBlue is getting special consideration in return for cooperation, but that’s how government works. There’s a market solution now, stay off JetBlue.
I have to agree with John.
What makes you think you have a reasonable expectation of privacy when you do business with any company?
I have yet to hear a compelling reason why or how this is an invasion of my privacy.
Err…you would have an expectation of privacy when the company concerned tells you your information will never ever be shared.
http://www.jetblue.com/privacy.html
Obviously if the company says, “We won’t do this and that,” then of course you have a reasonable expectation.
My question regarding JetBlue then becomes, when was this privacy policy put into place, and this privacy policy only covers information collected from their website and not from travel agencies, reservations made over the phone or at the airport.
The solution in this case is two fold:
1) Stop doing business with Jet Blue. Make the reason for your refusal to do business with Jet Blue widely known. Convince others to do the same. Don’t do business with them, even if they offer the lower price (unless the price cut is so dramatic that it is worth it to you to sell all your personal information).
2) If you did business with Jet Blue and your personal information was exchanged, consider a lawsuit. If they made a promise to keep the information private and they did not keep that information private, there may be a number of legal remedies. Obviously we can’t know exactly which cause of action is appropriate (if any) until we have more facts. But it is something worth exploring.
There is no need for government regulation unless it is simply to undo what the Partiort Act has done (i.e. if Jet Blue was required by law to give up the information, and only did so after fighting the government tooth and nail. Doubtful.)
It may be wise to make sure these allegations are even true before you go boycotting the airline or building up a class for a suit.
http://www.dontspyon.us aint exactly the BBC. Although, these days, the BBC aint exactly the BBC either.
So, is this fact or fiction? Having already had my name and SSN foisted by hackers (along with a few thousand of my colleagues), I certainly do see this as a massive invasion of my privacy. The actions described also put thousands of JetBlue customers in danger of becoming victims of identify theft, as I and my colleagues were.
There is more at stake here than privacy, and I would argue that both privacy and identity are two of our most important assets. We shouldn’t take them for granted, nor should we surrender them willy-nilly to our government out of fear.
All this remains true, regardless of the story’s veracity, don’t you think?
DontSpyOnUs :: JetBlue: Code Red
An offer by JetBlue Airways to test the CAPPS II internal border control system has been accepted by the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration.
In a secret, off-the-record meeting
We don’t know whether the story is valid, but take a look at the alleged posting of SSNs. The article links to a PDF file with one SSN used to demonstrate “Anomalous Demographic Information for One Passenger.” Is THIS the public posting of SSNs?
This passenger has used 23 different addresses in 5 states. Three of those addresses are PO boxes, and he appears to have lived in one of those boxes for 3 years.
I also note some address differences that are same street, different house number, that look suspicious.
This may be a fictional example, or it may be a real passenger on Jet Blue flights. Lets assume for a moment that this is a real passenger.
Forgetting for a moment the phony War on Terror, but remembering that we have been targeted for destruction by radical Islamists, and they have turned our own aircraft into weapons against us in the past, does it make good sense to disregard this passenger’s voluntarily-given “anomalous” information?
As a follow-up to my earlier post, I spent a little more time examining the website that “broke” this story: http://www.dontspyon.us.
The Jet Blue story is the ONLY story, and it appears to be run by anonymous individuals.
Does this appear to have some credibility problems? It seems like it to me.
The AP just ran the story. Perhaps it does have some teeth.
Here’s a link to the story:
http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/f/1310/9-19-2003/20030919103007_20.html
“Err…you would have an expectation of privacy when the company concerned tells you your information will never ever be shared.”
Sure. And now what? The only real remedy is to stop using them.
“If you did business with Jet Blue and your personal information was exchanged, consider a lawsuit.”
For what damages?
According to the CEO of JetBlue, they “provided passengers’ names, addresses and phone numbers to Torch after and ‘exceptional request’ from the Department of Defense to assist their contractor, Torch Concepts, with a project regarding military base security.” Torch then “developed this information into a presentation, without JetBlue’s knowledge, for a Department of Homeland Security symposium.”
Since no one from Torch or the government has stepped forward to dispute this information, lets accept it as true for the moment. So, first of all, there was no “exchange” of personal information. JB neither expected nor received any compensation. Also, notice that SSNs were not provided, making it a question as to how Torch obtained these numbers.
It seems to me we have someone at DoD using their position to encourage JB to cooperate with Torch Concepts, which then used the information for their own purposes. They also appear to have secured access to the SSN information.
This could develop into a really great scandal. But unless the story changes, forget about suing JetBlue, and watch for Torch Concepts to be focus of attention, with some government employees on the hotseat.
Hi, I had a terrible encounter this weekend with Jetblue. I have flown Jet Blue over 10 times in my Life. So I am very familiar with their procedures, well at least I thought I so until this weekend. My flight was schedule for 1159Pm departure. I was flying out of Denver International airport. I walked to the ticket counter and gave my name and at the same time handed the customer service rep my ID. The rep replied, “we have a security problem, and it is because of you name”. She then paged for an Airport police officer.
The officer then explained that I have a warrant and handcuffed me infront of everyone at the ticket counter. They drove me downtown to find out that it was a mistaken Identity. The officer then apologized and explained that it was JetBlues fault. I called Jet blue and they apologized about 50 times then offered me a $50 dollar voucher for that exciting night. Now, how would you feel and what should be my next step.???
ass traffic