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September 16, 2004
Privacy? What Privacy?
Northwest Airlines Corp. breached no one's privacy when it shared passenger data with federal researchers weeks after the September 11 attacks, the Transportation Department ruled in dismissing a complaint filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
What a surprise! The government rules that giving people's private information to them is A-OK! Who would've thought it?
The CNN report continues:
Samuel Podberesky, assistant general counsel for aviation enforcement, wrote that Northwest didn't violate its privacy policy -- and even if it had, the policy was unenforceable because he said Northwest is required to share passenger data with the government upon request.
"Privacy is not, as EPIC would have it, an absolute 'personal and fundamental right ... particularly in the context of air travel," Podberesky wrote in the ruling, filed Friday.
There are no "absolute 'personal and fundamental right[s]'" as far as the government is concerned; and expecting justice from the government's courts, especially when the government is being challenged, is like expecting an elephant to lay an egg.
Posted by Mike Tennant at September 16, 2004 04:47 PM