From
Wired...
A top homeland security official told Congress that five major domestic airlines turned over sensitive passenger data to the agency or its contractors in 2002 and 2003, contradicting numerous statements by airline and government officials and confirming some of the worst fears of privacy advocates.
As a long time netizen let me say.
- nothing you do on the net is anonymous
- nothing you do doesn't generate data
- that data is being collected and centralized
- regardless of law, that data is being collected
- you might as well assume that your video rentals and grocery purchases are being correlated with your health and voter registration information.
Any strategy to combat this has to involve realizing we will lose the war, the data will exist. It might almost be better to let them do it so it's in the open and they are accountable as stewards of that information! (believe me I'm paranoid about privacy rights and I hate that idea, it should be taken as ironic that I suggest such a thing... or if not ironic, at least "desperate") There will be ways to confuse the database, and there will be ways to prosecute abuse of this information (I hope), but it's going to happen. The only real solution is a free society where we are free to be ourselves and to think free. A society where having such information to triangulate on a person with their life's data is fruitless.
They do name names:
Delta, Continental, America West, JetBlue and Frontier Airlines secretly turned over sensitive passenger data to Transportation Security Administration contractors in the spring and summer of 2002, according to the sworn statement of acting TSA chief David Stone. In addition, two of the four largest airline reservation centers, Galileo International and Sabre, also gave sensitive passenger information, including home phone numbers, credit card numbers and health data, without disclosing the transfers to travelers or asking their permission.