Showing posts with label Airlines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Airlines. Show all posts

April 23, 2008

speedlinking, today's article roundup

Prosecutor orders arrest of Colombia President Uribe's cousin

By FRANK BAJAK
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia's chief prosecutor ordered the arrest of one of President Alvaro Uribe's most intimate allies on Tuesday, bringing a scandal linking politicians and right-wing militias deeper into the president's inner circle.

Former Justice Official Accused of Exchanging Favors With Abramoff

By James V. Grimaldi
A federal prosecutor in Maryland has accused a Justice Department official who became the former deputy chief of staff of the criminal division of helping Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for a "stream of things of value," according to criminal papers filed yesterday.

High Court to Hear Uranium Case

By Robert Barnes
The Supreme Court said yesterday that it would hear a dispute between USEC of Bethesda and a French supplier of low-enriched uranium in a case the federal government said has implications not only for the energy industry but also for efforts to dismantle some nuclear weapons.


U.S. to Insist That Travel Industry Get Fingerprints

By Spencer S. Hsu and Del Quentin Wilber
The U.S. government today will order commercial airlines and cruise lines to prepare to collect digital fingerprints of all foreigners before they depart the country under a security initiative that the industry has condemned as costly and burdensome.


October 14, 2007

Homeland Security, Airlines and Canada:the usual Sunday roundout up of "security" newz (ARG!!)

U.S. Plan for Airline Security Meets Resistance in Canada


Published: October 14, 2007

OTTAWA, Oct. 13 — Canadian airlines are balking at a Department of Homeland Security plan that would require them to turn over information about passengers flying over the United States to reach another country.

The proposal, which appears at odds with Canada’s privacy laws, would mostly involve Canadians who join the annual winter exodus to Mexico, Cuba and the Caribbean. It is also viewed by the Canadian airline industry as a rejection of several costly measures already taken to assuage American concerns.

“I appreciate and respect United States citizens’ concern for their safety and security,” said Fred Gaspar, the vice president of policy and strategic planning for the Air Transport Association of Canada. “But we need to understand what the gap is they need to fix.”

The proposal is part of a broad Transportation Security Administration plan known as the Secure Flight Program. Last month, the agency released rules it hopes to impose when it takes over from the airlines the job of matching passenger names with terrorism watch lists and no-fly lists.

Christopher White, a spokesman for the security administration, said the new program was not a negative comment on Canadian security measures.

“We need a multilayered approach,” he said. “Any security system that relies on one process is a very vulnerable system.”

In June, Canada put in effect its own no-fly list of potentially dangerous travelers. The Canadian program was developed after extensive consultation with the United States.

Mr. Gaspar said that the Canadian airlines’ understanding was that once Canada’s program was under way, the only information they would have to give the United States would be about passengers headed to that country.

“Either the United States places no value whatsoever in the Canadian list, which it helped develop, or I have to suspect what’s going on here is a pure and simple data-fishing exercise,” Mr. Gaspar said.

Among other things, he speculated that the data could be used by American authorities to track Americans who violated the trade embargo against Cuba by flying there on Canadian airlines.

Mr. White, of the Transportation Security Administration, said the rules were open for comment until Oct. 22, “including from our Canadian friends.”

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