AFL-CIO Criticizes Anti-terror Screening System That Might Record Union Membership

WASHINGTON_The AFL-CIO complained that a government anti-terrorist screening program might be obtaining and keeping records of whether international travelers are union members.

"Even the suggestion that union membership is somehow indicative of a threat to security is offensive to the millions of workers we are proud to represent," AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney and Edward Wytkind, president of the labor federation's transportation trades department wrote Thursday. They sent a letter of complaint to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke responded that "it borders on the offensive to suggest that we have any interest in union membership. We don't." Knocke said the department had installed software that automatically screened out indications of union membership and other sensitive personal information from the data it obtains for all passengers arriving in or leaving the United States on international flights or cruises.

Sweeney and Wytkind said they understood that Homeland Security was not specifically requesting information about union membership. But they added: "We are extremely troubled by an international agreement that would anticipate the transfer of this data into the department's data base."

"Furthermore, we are dissatisfied by DHS assurances that an automated system will be employed which filters sensitive ... codes and terms and does not use this information," Sweeney and Wytkind wrote. They noted that Chertoff had said in exceptional cases, where lives could be in peril, DHS could retain and use sensitive data including union membership.

Their complaint was triggered by a letter Chertoff sent July 26 to Luis Amado, president of the Council of the European Union, describing in detail how U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents would use passenger information the EU had agreed to provide. The agreement earlier this year followed long negotiations to allay privacy fears on the part of Europeans.

The agreement allows Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection agency to obtain passenger name records in advance of international departures so the passengers can be screened by its Automated Targeting System for their potential to be terrorists.

"We're mainly interested in name, address, telephone number and credit card number," Knocke said, "Because that information about the Sept. 11 hijackers could have led us to other hijackers." Knocke acknowledged U.S. agents also were interested in some other data in the passenger name records, like seat assignments.

There is no rule governing what data is contained in passenger name records. But airlines, ticket and travel agents often put lots of data in the records, including names of traveling companions, requests for meals that comply with rules of certain religions, and even how many rooms and beds the travelers reserve at hotels.

Chertoff wrote that to the extent the records include sensitive data that reveals "racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and ... the health or sex life of the individual," the system automatically excludes that and doesn't use it in the risk assessment of passengers. He said in exceptional cases, like life threatening ones, U.S. agents could look at that data, but Homeland Security would notify the European Commission within 48 hours that the data had been accessed.

Knocke said there had been no such exceptional occasions since the agreement was signed earlier this year.