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Might want to FOIA / Privacy Act request them for the information in your file. It should make for interesting reading. The person who'd be authorized to say "no" to that has very, very different motivations in life than a ground-level security screener. For example, they're paid to avoid bad PR, and "The Privacy Act, which was established to prevent government abuses of power like the secret files the FBI kept on folks, does not prevent us from keeping secret files on you" is the definition of bad PR. They would also have to commit to that position in writing. Every bureaucrat learns very quickly that things which are not written down never happened. The events described by those tweets? Never happened. Get a signed logbook entry, though, and you have instant chain of evidence going back to God Almighty.

This is, generally, one of those "letters on paper can be used to hack bureaucracies to one's advantage" kind of things.

c.f. http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/admin/fl/foia/reference_guide.xml

The above is mostly motivated by an enduring interest in the inner mechanics of complex systems, not by any particular feeling with regards to Wikileaks.



IIRC, he has done both. They refuse to release the contents or even tell him the name of the right file to ask for.

The EFF and ACLU have both tried to get something to happen here...


Also, check out the DHS TRIP program: http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/customer/redress/index.shtm. It's intended for this sort of thing. If nothing else, it may force someone to commit something to paper.


http://www.exquisitetweets.com/tweets?eids=eqt3bK9L1E.equdE5...

"I would really love to know the contents of the CBP file on me. It's too bad that they refuse to disclose it via TRIPS or any other system."


TRIP is primarily for cases of mistaken identity. DHS has identified the person they intended to identify in this case.


I suspect that homeland security does not fall under FoI but I could be wrong


1 + 1 != 3, Customs and Border Protection is indeed subject to federal law. They publish a list of requests (with details elided) on the Internet:

http://foia.cbp.gov/index.asp?ps=1&search=&category=...

Again, you could imagine them asserting one of the exemptions to the Act, but that would require them committing to a damaging position in paper. That is a major purpose of the exercise. The existence of that piece of paper would be a news story. (Man Claims Feds Out To Get Him On The Internet is not a news story.)


I don't think the feds are denying that they're out to get him. He's connected to the Wikileaks cable leak, the US government position is that this man is linked to what Hillary Clinton called, "ot just an attack on America's foreign policy interests ... it is an attack on the international community"[1].

[1] - http://hillary.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/29/clinton_wi...


yes but all those things can just been seen as politicians blustering. Politicians are very good at twisting words to say something while implying another thing. You get a bit of paper from the government saying "You there, you are not entitled to this", is worth way more.




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