Brussels, 15/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - US Secretary for Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, attempted to justify to MEPs on Monday, demands from the US authorities on personal airline data for passengers from Europe. He considered that the cost of civil liberties was relatively low compared to the threat of global terrorism.
At the beginning of his speech to the civil liberties committee in Brussels, the US secretary declared: “I believe we are at war”. Chertoff added: “We are collecting data because it has proven time and time again to keep dangerous people out of the country”. According to Chertoff, the collection of this information is not for setting up a “large database” but for comparing lists of terrorists and suspects in order to identify those that require specific surveillance from among millions of passengers. An instrument such as the transfer of air passenger data (APD) was, Chertoff informed MEPs, “a minimal cost to civil liberties”. Over recent months MEPs have voiced fears about data protection with regard to the interim agreement concluded last October with the EU (EUROPE 9396 and 9281). The current interim agreement stipulates that when passengers purchase their tickets for the USA, there is an automatic transfer to the US services of 34 kinds of personal data (address of traveller, telephone number and credit card etc).
The data is collected by the US Customs and Border Protection office but the US Homeland Security Department can pass the data on under certain conditions to American counter-terrorism agencies, such as the FBI. Further negotiations of a confidential nature are underway on a new agreement with the United States by the end of July this year (EUROPE 9378). In this context, the Americans have set out new demands on Europeans. In particular, they would like to be able to keep the data longer, potentially up to 40 years (as foreseen by the ATS System - the Automated Target System - see EUROPE 9331), instead of the three and a half years foreseen in the current agreement. They would also like to lift restrictions on the use of such data. “We need to be able to share the information we are collecting among relevant agencies (…) and to use it for a sufficient period of time, over a number of years”, Mr Chertoff explained, pointing out that he did not wish the information to circulate any “slower” than it does at present. On the other hand, Mr Chertoff said he was not sure that his country needed more information than the 34 types of data currently available. The EU hopes to see even this number brought down to 19, Mr Frattini said in February. Commissioner Franco Frattini effectively admitted that Europeans and Americans still had to settle certain points of dissension mainly with regard to the length of procedures, the amount of time for using the data and other technical elements.
Dutch Liberal Democrat Sophia In't Veld called for the results, obtained by Washington thanks to such data, to be made known, exclaiming: “Do all these measures make the world a safer place?”
She also asked if PNR were used for reasons other than counter-terrorism, for example for the private use of employers or insurance companies. Finally she was critical of the fact that EU citizens were not protected by the US Privacy Act, other than as an “administrative favour which can be removed at will, and not within a legislative framework”. To justify Washington's approach, Mr Chertoff said that one of the causes of the 9 September (2001) attacks was the fact that information had not been shared. He said that, if the US had had such a system in place at that time, two terrorists would have been identified when they bought their plane tickets, and analysis of their records could have led to several others being identified. He also gave assurances that it was illegal for a private company to use PNR. Finally, he advised MEPs to consider the US decision to extend legal protection to EU citizens as a positive step. Picking up the comments made a few days ago by British Home Secretary John Reid, Mr Chertoff said he wanted political “tools” to be adapted to be able to deal with this threat. “If we do not do our job, we will see more innocent people perish from terrorist attacks,” he warned. (bc)