Security Regs Raise Concerns for Small Operators

While noting that large flight departments will likely be able to adapt to the newly proposed security requirements released September 11 by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the National Air Transportation Association expressed concerns that small aircraft operators wanting to fly beyond U.S. borders will be unable to comply.
A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), Advanced Information on Private Aircraft Arriving and Departing the United States, released on September 11, will require more detailed information – including complete passenger and crew manifest data and aircraft information to foster aircraft identification, tracking and communication about arriving and departing private aircraft. The hour-long notice, said Department of Homeland Security, (DHS), allows customs agents time to check names against terrorist watch lists. The department said 400 private aircraft enter the U.S. for foreign locations every day, mostly from the Caribbean and trans-Atlantic departure points. Aircraft arriving from outside the U.S. currently must provide approximately 10 pieces of passenger information; the new proposal would require 34 pieces of information, submitted via an Internet portal for every aircraft, according to the National Business Aircraft Association, which also raised concerns about the new rules.
"While the general aviation community supports security enhancements, NBAA is troubled with the potential impact of this proposal, especially on small businesses," said NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen. "We intend to convey this and other concerns to the agency, and we strongly encourage NBAA Members to do likewise."
Administered by CBP, the agency is considering a phased approach to implement the proposed security measures. Under Phase I, DHS will publish the NPRM to elicit public comments prior to issuance of a final rule and implementation of the new requirements. Under Phase II, DHS will develop methods and processes to address “additional security vulnerabilities” for international private aircraft operations at their last point of departure prior to entering U.S. airspace.
NATA President James K. Coyne said it robs inbound aircraft operators the ability to declare the manifest via radio while en route. He noted that often flights originate where there is not even power, much less a telephone and, in such remote locations, it is unlikely cell phones or high-speed internet connections via internet cards would work. "It appears that these unique operations were not given sufficient consideration in the development of the new requirement," Coyne said. "We will submit detailed comments to the CBP as to how such operations might be better accommodated in the regulations."
Privacy concerns over passenger data collection is growing, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which issued results of a study that called government screening programs "a surveillance dragnet.” They gained access to database records showing routine recording of race in addition to answers given to U.S. border inspectors about travel and other informnation. EFF Co-Founder John Gilmore even found his reading material was noted as well as the number of small flashlights he was carrying. EFF accused DHS of not “playing straight with Americans.”
The documents were obtained by the Gilmore-funded Identity Project, which filed Privacy Act requests for five individuals to see the data stored on them by the government. The information revealed the copious data mining and recording of airline record collection kept by the government as well as records used in the controversial DHS’s Automated Targeting System (ATS) which investigates every passenger leaving and entering the country, including U.S. citizens, using classified rules to target passengers for extra screening or denial of travel. The detailed border-crossing notes included not only why and where Gilmore was traveling – to a computer convention in Berlin – but his travel beyond Berlin throughout Europe and Asia.
The system rates passengers for their likelihood they could be terrorists or drug runners and culls from the airline databases – known as Passenger Name Records (PNR), with everything a passenger tells an airline including overseas emergency contact information. It is required by the government. It also culls the highly problematic and inaccurate, 700,000 name terrorist watch list. ATS remained virtually secret for more than a decade, until DHS issued a notice last fall, when it modified its proposed rules allowing more access to the database by individuals and contracting the time data is collected.
EFF also opposes DHS’s project – Secure Flight – for data mining of passengers traveling outside the United States but indicated DHS might already be doing it since the Identity Project found reference to PNR records of travel booked, paid for and flown outside the U.S. Secure Flight replaces DHS screening for the current practice of airlines doing the watchlist screening by having airlines send PNR data before each flight. It would also replace use of data purchased from private data-base companies with the PNR information.