Homeland Security Admits Violating Privacy

[sabra]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/12/22/national/w113302S73.DTL&type=politics

Homeland Security Admits Violating Privacy

The Homeland Security Department admitted Friday it violated the Privacy Act two years ago by obtaining more commercial data about U.S. airline passengers than it had announced it would.

Seventeen months ago, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' auditing arm, reached the same conclusion: The department's Transportation Security Administration "did not fully disclose to the public its use of personal information in its fall 2004 privacy notices as required by the Privacy Act."

...

"This further documents the cavalier way the Bush administration treats Americans' privacy," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who is set to become Senate Judiciary Committee chairman in January. "With this database program, first they ignored the Privacy Act, and now, two years later, they still have a hard time admitting it."

Leahy promised the new Congress will try to learn more about how the administration uses such databases. "Data mining technology has great potential," Leahy said, "but history shows that without adequate checks and balances and oversight, misuse and abuse of the public's personal information will be inevitable."

[Double T]

1. YOU can be certain the misuse and abuse has ALREADY OCCURRED.

The American Gestapo courtesy of bushco.

[sarcasmo]

2. Class Action Lawsuit anyone?

[RDU Socialist]

3. in related news: Grizzly Bear takes shit in the forest

[Zhade]

4. K/R

HUGE NEWS.

[TheWatcher]

5. We now cut to this fast breaking story.......

Tuesday found to indisputably follow Monday.

[Vidar]

6. How many years will it take to untangle &eliminate this corrupt

bureaucracy? Recommended.

[Quantess]

7. I wish I could have recommended this thread.

Too late.