Asking for religious affiliation. My God! The Nazis used to do this when they ran Lufthansa. What's next, seeing if you're circumcised?

Not even whether they prefer the chicken or the steak dinner?

In either case it'll look and taste the same.

Lousy.

It's what they serve at campaign fund raisers.

You know I often think of all the info these picky bastards want, apparently only to use after the event.

They had everything they needed to stop 9/11 and between firing gay translators, ignoring and silencing Sibel Edmonds and vilifying her, as well as the Wilsons and just ignoring the PDBs with the outline of the upcoming disaster, that's all they've been able to do with the info.

"See! They were here past their visas!" "See? they were taking pilot lessons" See? We KNEW it! that's why we have to collect all this info-so we can tell you we knew it was going to happen"

Morans.

The greatest threat to America will come from within, not from without. This is where Homeland Security needs to focus their attention: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/rapture-ready-the-unauth_b_...

[...] as previously. The new agreement on Passenger Name Record, … article continues at Logan Murphy brought to you by travel and [...]

Can a VP shoot a union of sovereign nations in the face, technically speaking?

Huh...Sounds like the EU doesn't want to play patty-cake with this pack of jock-sniffing busy-bodies.... Although nineteen categories are still a fair amount... With the way our cultural norms in the west are being twisted about, are we prepared yet to at least admit the terrorists have managed a stalemate? Or is that little blast of truth in advertising a bit too much for the neocon head in the sand types to face up to... More importantly, is this the kind of shit we have to look forward to from now on? If so, does this mean we have to hang another freedom medal on Chimpy and Karl and all the rest of them for making the 21st century to date soo much more fun than the last blood drenched century??? Jussst askin....JD

Does this mean that we will be able to take a bottle of Aquafina on board soon?

Logan Murphy @ Top:

You may recall Nonny Mouse’s nightmare story and the story I posted earlier in the week about the outrageous requests from Homeland Security seeking religious, sexual and political data on all passengers flying into international airports in the U.S..This is great news from the EU.

Actually, it seems like rather ambiguous news.

Yes, the part where the EU will be respecting the privacy of its respective citizens by requiring the airlines to provide less data is good news.

But isn't there a possibility that the US will require the passengers themselves to provide the information during layovers, making the process even more burdensome than the hassles Nonny Mouse and you already reported?

pissed off patricia @ 14:

I often wonder if all this info gets shoved in a dark closet somewhere and the real purpose is to make us "thinK" they are doing something with it.

Wouldn’t surprise me. Just like seeing a swarm of Army Corp of Engineer employees taking readings and typing into their laptops as they stood – both pre and post-Katrina - atop the New Orleans levees and report back to Washington that everything is in tip-top shape. Incompetence seems to be running rampant.

Capabilty Jones @ 21:

Hopefully the next Democratic president can take action to eliminate much of the scare mongering and unnecessary harrassment of travelers that the Bushiveks have put in place.

Don't count on it. The Democrats signed off on a lot of this bull.

And... go Europe!

European @ 19:

Unfortunately the reduction from 34 to 19 is a scam and does not mean that
the EU is taking a toughter stance against the US nor for EU privacy.
The reduction consists of information that is completely useless.
And to reduce the number of different items, multiple items have been combined.
So three items become one, hence the reduction. But of items, not information.

I'm afraid the EU is going in a similar direction as the US government,
it is also collecting vast amounts of information on its citizenry and storing this
information in databases it can not handle safely.

Yep, agreed. I just visited The European Commission´s website and found out that nothing changed since my comment a few days ago. I guess, this article is snow not only from yesterday but from 07/17/07

http://ec.europa.eu/news/transport/070717_1_en.htm

Even this paragraph didn´t change the least:

"Some concerns still exist however. The handling, collection, use and storage of personal data are not based on a legal agreement but on assurances given in a letter. These could be changed at any time. Another worry is the scope of information: sexual orientation, political opinions and ethnicity can be used by US homeland security in "exceptional" circumstances."

You can click the concerns-link and you´ll find what I´ve already posted a few days ago:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/019-8993-190-07...

Nothing did change so far.

I just can´t see why I suddenly should become euphorical.

I still will never ever step onto American soil. Period.

kiki @ 13:

This is a shocking development, as the Muslimofascists are taking over Europe. As a UK citizen, I am currently required by law to recite the entire Koran by heart and defile three white women before breakfast every day.

What do you have for breakfast? Besides the three white women ....

What are these 19 PNR data bits of info - the news dispatches are not specific at all.

What about these fingerprints/mugshots Nonny Mouse was reporting? Are they included in the 19 ?

Which/ what EXACTLY is the 'law' that requires it NOW ? Any of the Canadians on this board could check w/ their pols what IS (or, isn't ..) this requirement about ?! Officially, through the right channels is the only way to figure out, if possible. I wouldn't be surprised if it IS NOT spelled out anywhere. Just being done.

In the worst of the Soviet times there never was fingerprinting/ pix taking of ANY passengers at the Soviet-camp countries destinations, or, during transit. Crossing via East Berlin on the London-Hoek van Holland-Warsaw-Moscow international trains was very traumatic, with 'train matrons'= Soviet border female guards 'fingering' some female passengers, men being frisked by male agents (in separate empty compartments), while in the Soviet sector of Berlin. The passports with mandatory visas were confiscated by a usually Soviet 'conductor' / car manager/ the moment one was getting on a train, in all cars, including the sleeping cars. Passports were returned only few minutes before disembarking in the destination country/ city. Passengers asleep in their beds were awakened with sharp/ strong lights into face by Soviet armed soldiers, since the locked doors were opened w/ a master key by a 'conductor', while passengers slept. This was supposedly necessary to compare/ make sure the passports were really of the people traveling. This was done several times during the night, since the train was crossing the Soviet Berlin border twice (in and out). Then the German-Polish border was coming up right away. Poles were always much more flexed, until the Polish-Soviet border, and the switch of the undercarriages for the Soviet rail gage (cranes used, often with people inside), and Soviet armed soldiers running in their heavy boots along the train corridors, on the train-car roofs back and forth, and crawling under the cars - supposedly to make sure nobody undocumented would get into their paradise country.

There were no computers as widely available, their techology was mostly propaganda only, so their info gathering could never be as effective/ harmful to citizens as the US capacity now.
James Bond movies while exaggerating a bit were not far from very true re: USSR, Berlin, & all in between. The Soviets were very much as US DHS agents - after all "Homeland" and its "security" is solely a Soviet concept.
Except of Nazi Germany no other country ever used even such terminology.

Primakov, the fmr Soviet KGB head, is in charge of the US DHS efforts related to the Patriot Act (incl. US national ID/internal passports, mandatory for all in 2008). Signed up by Cheney/Bush junta.

I think it will come to a point in the country where the corporate masters have final say in the rules for those coming to this country if their bottom lines are being hurt bad enough.

I also want to know what happened to all of those libertarians that helped put the Shrub in power. I hope that they won't be voting Repug any time soon, at least the true libertarians. Those that just want their taxes lowered so that they can cower in fear in their mansions won't ever change their opinions.

Whew, this lessening of the requirement for travelers (especially Brits) to reveal their sexual and religious practices is a relief.

The waiting in lines to get off aircraft would have been as long, or longer, as the wait in lines to get on them, if all the Brits had to detail their life histories of buggering and being buggered by each other as members of the 'Church' of England.

There's an additional point that's being thrown up in the EU that's appears to be passed over here. The EU have now agreed that, instead of the current 3 1/2 yrs that the US can keep the records, this is now being extended to 15 yrs!

But I suppose that, seeing that the US has revoked Habeus Corpus for her own citizens, there's no need to treat foreigners as innocent-until-proven-guilty either...

PRIVACY IN THE SKIES
US-EU Flight Data Treaty Signed

A newly-signed treaty between the US and the EU will send in-depth profiles of European airline passengers to the US Department of Homeland Security within minutes of take-off. European privacy advocates say there's turbulence ahead.
...
Under the new data-sharing agreement, widely criticized by privacy advocates as invasive, 19 pieces of data will be sent to the US Department of Homeland Security within 15 minutes of a flight's departure.

Included in the information will be seat assignments, credit card numbers, phone numbers, frequent flier award information, passport numbers and connecting flights. At the signing ceremony in Washington, the US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff called the data "an essential screening tool for detecting potentially dangerous trans-Atlantic travelers."
...
Concern over privacy rights led the EU to insist on a reduction in the number of data points (from 34 to 19) and to complain that the data would be stored for too long.

As part of the deal, which was reached after extensive negotiations that finished in late June, the US agreed to keep the data active for seven years, and then in a "dormant" file for specific uses for an additional eight years. And US officials will not be able to access airlines' records directly, instead relying on the airlines to send them data -- or face fines.

Much of the treaty relies on the US to follow the rules and notify Europe later. Sensitive data on race or religion is supposed to be filtered out, for instance, but could be retained in special cases. "This is like Swiss cheese -- for every rule, there is an exception or escape clause," Dutch Member of the European Parliament Sophie in 't Veld told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "This fails completely, despite all the statements to the contrary."

Treaty critics say the new version actually represents a much more modest revision than claimed, and that most of the reductions are simply reorganizations and rephrasings of the original categories. Only four of the 34 original data points requested by the US have been eliminated entirely.

Skeptics say European negotiators should have pushed for more concessions, especially given the US track record on data protection. In a report after treaty negotiations were completed, the European Parliament called the treaty's privacy protections "substantively flawed."

"The Americans basically declare on their word of honor that they will be very careful with our personal data," in 't Veld says. "Based on our experiences in the past, that's not good enough."
(emphasis added by me)

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,496868,00.html