The Feds want to know every bit of travel data the airlines have from June of 2004 as a pilot (heh) for a new program called “secure flight.” Think of it as Son of CAPPS II. While the government may even believe this is to fight terrorism, it goes without saying that eventually, it’ll get abused and warped into something else.

Needless to say, we feel this is a very, very bad idea. We continue to fear creeping government intrusion into private life far more than we fear random terrorist attacks, particularly when 9/11 itself may well have been prevented if so many folks hadn’t been asleep at the switch or too partisan to pay attention to warnings from the prior administration.