Travel Chaos
NARA (National Archives) published notice in the Federal Register on October 27, 2008, of TSA’s submission to them (see Schedule Pending #3) of a proposed Records Schedule for Secure Flight Program. The actual Proposed Schedule was not published in the Register, only notice that you can request it and file comments on whether NARA should approve it. The 30 day window to request from NARA a copy of this proposed Records Schedule, along with NARA’s associated appraisal reports, closes November 26. This can be done easily via email – see my request below. After providing a requester with these documents, NARA must wait 30 days for the requester to file comments – and to take all comments into account prior to deciding whether to approve the schedule. Destruction of records requires the approval by NARA of a Records Schedule – see 44 U.S.C. Chapter 33 Disposal of Records. Presumably TSA wouldn’t start collecting domestic airline passenger records under Secure Flight, for program testing purposes or otherwise, without the ability to legally destroy them.
Making a request to NARA for TSA’s Secure Flight Records Schedule, and participating in the comment process, sends a message to NARA that the public is interested and concerned about TSA building files on the travel history of ordinary Americans. To make this request, cut and paste this into an email…
If you don’t want the government building a database of the travel history of innocent Americans, take a minute to visit Papers, please and send in a request.