US and European anti-terror agencies are seeking to expand the
screening of international airline passengers by digging deep into
a vast repository of airline data, The New York Times
reported Tuesday.
A proposal by US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
will allow the US government not only to look for known terrorists
on watch lists, but also to search broadly through the passenger
itinerary data to identify people who may be linked to terrorist
networks, according to the report.
Similarly, European leaders are considering seeking access to
this same database, which contains not only names and addresses of
travelers, but often their credit card information, e-mail
addresses, telephone numbers and related hotel or car
reservations.
However, the proposals, prompted by the recent British bomb
plot, have inspired a new round of protests from civil-rights
supporters and privacy experts, who had objected to earlier efforts
to plumb those repositories for clues.
(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2006)
