Necessary Roughness

I can’t say I’m surprised by this (thanks taynar):

The federal agency in charge of aviation security collected extensive personal information about airline passengers even though Congress forbade it and officials said they wouldn’t do it, according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

The Transportation Security Administration bought and is storing details about U.S. citizens who flew on commercial airlines in June 2004 as part of a test of a terrorist screening program called Secure Flight, the documents indicate.

So there are a couple of issues:

I don’t believe I have anything in my proverbial closet. That is not an invitation for anyone to go digging. My behavior is determined by publicly known consequences of violating public standards of behavior. If my business is subject to the inspection of secret government processes, then I can be locked up the instant I make the wrong government employee mad. All someone has to do is define any behavior, e.g. buying more than two plane tickets a month, as “suspicious”. That’s not liberty under law. It just seems to me that those who would go on records-fishing expeditions have something in their own history that they are trying to protect.

What is the punishment for breaking the Privacy Act of 1974?

(i)(1) Criminal penalties

Any officer or employee of an agency, who by virtue of his employment or official position, has possession of, or access to, agency records which contain individually identifiable information the disclosure of which is prohibited by this section or by rules or regulations established thereunder, and who knowing that disclosure of the specific material is so prohibited, willfully discloses the material in any manner to any person or agency not entitled to receive it, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not more than $5,000.

We need to see some check-writing. $5000 in 1974 translates to $19736.31 according to a CPI calculator at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota. Pity fines aren’t adjusted for inflation.

Even when we put “good” people into office, we shouldn’t be trusting their offices with excessive activities that can harm us more than evildoers. Eventually they will leave, and someone not as scrupulous may fill their seat.