US, EU Butt Heads On Airline Info

A top American official urged European leaders Saturday to cooperate with U.S. demands to share information on airline passengers such as names, place of birth and date of birth, saying European resistance was hampering anti-terrorism efforts.

Tom Ridge, secretary for homeland security, said the European Union's demand to protect passengers' privacy must be balanced by the right of those passengers to travel safely. He noted that the United States wasn't requesting information on health or religion.

Ridge pressed his point at a conference here of European political and financial leaders, raising an issue that EU officials have warned could lead to a new trans-Atlantic confrontation.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/06/attack/main571936.shtml

everybody flying into the US.

the countries of identity cards and vast social bureauocracies are leading the way in privacy issues.

The last war over this was European refusal to allow selling credit card and other consumer information.

Considering that many Europeans are dealing with greater terrorist threats than we are, perhaps we should listen to them and not beat them over the head with our great ideas for quashing the liberties that we brag so much about.

They called them butt heads in a headline!

Try to do a screen capture on this before they change it!

Is this supposed to mean Ashcroft and Ridge want information on all passengers flying everywhere, even outside the U.S.?

?

at least in many EU countries to give this information to a third party without the involved person's consent. So e.g. Finnair is forced to ask for permission to give this information from the customer, if the person won't sign he's not allowed to fly to US. The problem is that in practice the admission to pass ones personal info is not by free will - 'sign or don't fly' is coersion and against the law.