Boing Boing: HOWTO request your TSA record

HOWTO request your TSA record
Yesterday, I blogged about the Alaskans who are suing the TSA for refusing the comply with the Privacy Act while testing the Secure Flight air passenger profiling system.

If you fly, you could be among the 100 million passengers whose info the TSA has illegally collected from commercial sources. Ann Harrison has posted a step-by-step guide for exercising your rights to request the TSA's records under the Privacy Act:

In direct violation of the Privacy Act, TSA has collected over 100 million records from commercial data providers to test Secure Flight. If your records are contained in this database, you have a right to obtain them. What would happen if thousands of people requested their TSA travel records every day?

You can request your travel and commercial records under the Privacy Act, but you better do it before TSA destroys the information. TSA spokeswoman Deirdre O’Sullivan told Wired News that the TSA has only destroyed some passenger name records (PNR) from airlines and travel agents, but not information TSA gathered from commercial data bases. You can request both your PNR and commercial data with a Privacy Act request.

Link (Thanks, Ann!)

Update: Ann clarifies: "I should note that 100 million individual commercial data records does not necessarily translate into 100 million passengers. As explained on the blog, TSA gave 42,000 passenger names to their data contractor who expanded the list to 200,000 names by using name variations. Then that data was compared to the 100 million illegally obtained travel records. But honestly, we don't have a clue how many names are really in that database. It's only an educated guess."