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LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- Acxiom Corp. didn't violate anyone's privacy rights when it gave information it accumulated on thousands of airline passengers to an Alabama company that was preparing an anti-terrorism study for the Defense Department, an Acxiom spokesman said Tuesday. The Little Rock-based data management company said it followed "applicable laws" and its own privacy policy in doing business with Torch Concepts of Huntsville, Ala. Torch Concepts produced the study, "Homeland Security: Airline Passenger Risk Assessment," with information from Acxiom and JetBlue Airways Corp. at Queens, N.Y. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit privacy group, filed a...

Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the Little Rock native and former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, has resigned as managing director of merchant banking for the Stephens Group Inc. of Little Rock effective Friday, a company spokesman confirmed. "He told several of us that his first assignment would be to Kuwait City for CNN," Stephens spokesman Frank Thomas said. "It was a very amicable parting, very comfortable." Clark couldn't be reached for comment Friday morning. He joined Stephens in July 2000, the same month he retired from the Army. He serves on the boards of directors of Acxiom...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A group of passengers has sued JetBlue Airways Corp. for passing their personal information to a Defense Department contractor. The suit, filed Monday, follows JetBlue's acknowledgment last week that, in violation of its own privacy policy, it had given information from about 5 million passenger records to Torch Concepts of Huntsville, Ala. Torch produced a study, "Homeland Security: Airline Passenger Risk Assessment," that was purported to help the government improve military base security. The class-action lawsuit, filed in Utah's 3rd District Court, alleges fraudulent misrepresentation, breach of contract and invasion of privacy. Also on...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 — Two federal agencies announced today that they had opened investigations into JetBlue Airways in response to the airline's admission that it had provided travel records on more than a million passengers to a Pentagon contractor, violating its own privacy rules. The moves by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Trade Commission came as JetBlue disclosed that it had hired Deloitte & Touche, the accounting firm, to review the company's privacy policies and determine if they needed to be revamped. The fast-growing three-year-old airline, which is based in New York and has worked to...

Before the Federal Trade Commission Washington, DC In the Matter of JetBlue Airways Corporation and Acxiom Corporation.Complaint and Request for Injunction, Investigation and for Other Relief INTRODUCTION1. This complaint concerns the privacy practices of JetBlue Airways Corporation and Acxiom Corporation. As set forth in detail below, JetBlue Airways Corporation and Acxiom Corporation have engaged in deceptive trade practices affecting commerce by disclosing consumer personal information to Torch Concepts Inc., an information mining company with its principal place of business in Huntsville, Alabama, in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 45(a)(1). JetBlue Airways Corporation and Acxiom Corporation engaged in these activities...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 — JetBlue Airways acknowledged publicly today that it had provided a Pentagon contractor with information on more than one million of its passengers as part of a program to track down terrorists and other "high risk" passengers. That data, which was turned over in violation of the airline's own privacy policies, was then used to identify the passengers' Social Security numbers, financial histories and occupations. JetBlue, a three-year-old discount airline, sent an e-mail message to passengers this week, conceding that it had made a mistake in providing the records last year to Torch Concepts, an Army...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Violating its own privacy policy, JetBlue Airways gave 5 million passenger itineraries to a Defense Department contractor that used the information as part of a study seeking ways to identify "high risk" airline customers. The study, produced by Torch Concepts of Huntsville, Ala., was titled "Homeland Security: Airline Passenger Risk Assessment" and was intended to be a proof-of-concept analysis for a project on military base security. "This was a mistake on our part," JetBlue chief executive David Neeleman said in an apologetic e-mail sent to angry customers. Neeleman insisted the data JetBlue provided was not...

<p>JetBlue Airways confirmed on Thursday that in September 2002, it provided 5 million passenger itineraries to a defense contractor for proof-of-concept testing of a Pentagon project unrelated to airline security -- with help from the Transportation Security Administration.</p> <p>The contractor, Torch Concepts, then augmented that data with Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information, including income level, to develop what looks to be a study of whether passenger-profiling systems such as CAPPS II are feasible.</p>

In September of 2002, JetBlue Airways secretly gave the Transportation Security Administration the full travel records of 5 million JetBlue customers. This sensitive travel data was then turned-over to a private security contractor for analysis, the results of which were presented at a security conference earlier this year and then posted on the Internet. JetBlue 'fesses-up in this Wired article: http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,60489,00.html

WASHINGTON -- The government already has color-coded terror alerts -- now it's preparing to color-code air travelers. According to The Washington Post, the government and airlines will phase in a computer system next year to measure the risk posed by every passenger who boards a flight in the United States. Passengers will be assigned one of three codes, based in part on their travel plans, traveling companions and the date the ticket was purchased. Sources said those coded "green" will easily pass through security checkpoints. Others will be coded "yellow" and face additional screening. An estimated 1-2 percent who get...

From the article: "...critics have been heating up efforts to halt or modify a new airline passenger-screening program that would set up a comprehensive internal border-control system to catch potential hijackers and those accused of violent crimes. " It contains a pointer to: http://www.dontspyon.us

TSA tinkers with privacy plan But critics worry the system could go in new directions BY Randall Edwards August 4, 2003 In an effort to alleviate privacy concerns about its preflight screening tool for airline passengers, the Transportation Security Administration last week backed off its plans to store passenger data for as long as 50 years. At the same time, TSA's updated privacy statement raised new concerns about the scope of the program. TSA, an agency of the Homeland Security Department, reported in a notice dated July 22 but released July 31 that the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS)...

<p>A program to screen airline passengers using a "no fly" list of potential terrorists is facing opposition in Congress, where a House panel has blocked $35 million in funding until privacy and civil-liberty issues can be reviewed.</p> <p>The profiling procedure &#8212; Enhanced Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System (CAPPS II) &#8212; would collect information on millions of passengers, including financial data that could be stored for 50 years.</p>

In response to Delta Air Line's utter lack of concern with the privacy of their customers demonstrated by their participation in a test of the CAPPS II system, a Delta disinvestment campaign has been launched at:http://www.boycottdelta.org .The idea of citizens having to undergo a background investigation that includes personal banking information and a credit check simply to travel in his or her own country is invasive and un-American. The CAPPS II system goes far beyond what any thinking citizen of this country should consider reasonable.If enough people refuse to fly Delta, then it is likely that other airlines will refuse...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense contractor Lockheed-Martin will develop a new system to check background information and assign a threat level to all commercial air passengers, the Transportation Department announced.</p> <p>The company, which employed Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta in the mid-1990s, was awarded a five-year contract to administer the program. The first phase of the contract is worth $12.8 million, transportation officials said.</p>

Before You Board an Airplane, Your Background Will Be Checked By Leslie Miller Associated Press Writer Published: Feb 27, 2003 WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is getting ready to test a new risk-detection system that would check background information and assign a threat level to everyone who buys a ticket for a commercial flight. The system, ordered by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks, will gather much more information on passengers. Delta Air Lines will try it out at three unidentified airports beginning next month, and a comprehensive system could be in place by the end of the year. Transportation...

WASHINGTON - The government is getting ready to test a new risk-detection system that would check background information and assign a threat level to everyone who buys a ticket for a commercial airline flight. The system, ordered by Congress after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, will gather much more information on passengers than at present. Delta Air Lines will try it out at three airports beginning next month, and a comprehensive system could be in place by the end of the year. Transportation officials say a contractor will be chosen soon to build the nationwide computer system, which...