Free Republic

WASHINGTON - When two Russian immigrants and their American financial backer needed marketing help for their innovative electric motor, they turned to a merchant banker at one of the nation's largest investment houses - retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark. The meeting at the Washington office of Stephens Inc. in late 2001 proved fortuitous for both Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO, and the principals in WaveCrest Laboratories, at the time a small research and development company in Dulles, Va. "They hit it off pretty much right away," said WaveCrest spokesman Tom McMahon. Clark signed on as a consultant...

Little Rock’s Acxiom Corp. has spent most of the two years since the attacks of Sept. 11 looking for government contracts to help fight the war on terror. It has found the contracts. Now it has a fight on its hands. The data-management company is involved in a growing dispute over the release of information on millions of airline passengers to a Defense Department contractor last year. Acxiom sold that contractor demographic data on roughly 2 million airline passengers — about 40 percent of those involved — as part of its role in the war on terror. As a...

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...

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...