‘Travelers, say bon voyage to privacy’

We talked at length with Watchdog investigative reporter Dave Lieber for his column in today’s Dallas Morning News: Travelers, say bon voyage to privacy.
Lieber hits the nail on the head by calling out how few travelers realize that the U. S. government is keeping a permanent file of complete mirror copies of their reservations:
Did you know that when you buy an airline ticket and make other travel reservations, the government keeps a record of the details?
If airlines don’t comply, they can’t fly in the U. S., explains Ed Hasbrouck, a privacy expert with the Identity Project who has studied the records for years and is considered the nation’s top expert.
Before each trip, the system creates a travel score for you…. Before an airline can issue you a boarding pass, the system must approve your passage, Hasbrouck explains….

This post was published at Papers Please on October 17th, 2014.