FT.com article
Michael Chertoff, the US homeland security secretary, will attempt next week to assuage European concerns about a system that requires airlines to share passenger information with the US authorities.
He will on Monday meet the European parliament's civil liberties committee in Brussels to discuss terrorism-related issues, including the passenger name record (PNR) system. This is used by airlines to co-ordinate passenger information but the US Department of Homeland Security has sought to collect PNR details to aid its anti-terrorism work.
PNR details can include names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and passport and credit-card details, and its use in the Homeland Security programme has angered some privacy advocates.
In an interview, Mr Chertoff stressed that he wanted to explain why the US believed that the data-sharing arrangement was crucial to fighting terrorism. He intends to provide examples of cases in which the PNR system has helped prevent suspected terrorists from entering the US.
Crucial to your demonic assault on civil liberties you effing sack of ballast.
"I want to educate them as to the value of this to us," he said. "This should not be a discussion that takes place in a vacuum but it should be one of very specifically how this information is a value and has resulted in our being able to turn away people who would be dangerous to this country . . . I may not persuade them that the upside outweighs the downside, but at least they will understand there is a very upside."
Sickening. Absolutely sickening.