1996-10-06 - Re: “Drift net fishing,” GAK, FBI, and NSA

Header Data

From: azur@netcom.com (Steve Schear)
To: “Timothy C. May” <tcmay@got.net>
Message Hash: 07bad45dfc02d7277b31fa50a73c5b7624fa02afc8cb595a7b3cfcc767737544
Message ID: <v02130500ae7d6af0566e@[10.0.2.15]>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1996-10-06 23:12:09 UTC
Raw Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 07:12:09 +0800

Raw message

From: azur@netcom.com (Steve Schear)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 07:12:09 +0800
To: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>
Subject: Re: "Drift net fishing," GAK, FBI, and NSA
Message-ID: <v02130500ae7d6af0566e@[10.0.2.15]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>A note on _contact analysis_. One thing the FBI probably wants badly are
>databases of who has travelled where, and when, for correlation analysis.
>Note that the crackdown on "valid IDs" for travel, for airlines, helps in
>this regard. I would not be surprised to learn that the airline databases
>are routinely fed to the Feds, so to speak. (Possibly via the FAA, acting
>as a kind of cutout.) Were I the head of the FBI, this is what I would
>want.

The airlines don't yet carefully check IDs (no SSN or DL # retained).  They
merely check that the name on your ID matches the reservation.


>
>The next step will be collecting hotel reservation databases. (Unlike the
>case with the FAA and the airlines, I don't know what kind of authority
>would grant them access to private hotel databases, but I expect they are
>working to find such authority somewhere. Maybe the infinitely malleable
>"regulation of commerce" clause, even if hotel stays are canonically _not_
>interstate trade!)
>
>(They already got access to the credit card databases, decades ago, of course.)
>

Are SSN and other ID required when opening a 'pre-paid' credit card
account?  That is, the ones for persons with poor credit who are required
to maintain a balance sufficient to pay off the charges?  Perhaps we could
put our heads together and determine a way to become franchised by MC/VISA
and offer 'affinity' type accounts with no address requirements (all
statments are sent via remailer/nym email).

-- Steve







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