"Drift net fishing," GAK, FBI, and NSA

[Steve Schear]

>A note on _contact analysis_. One thing the FBI probably wants badly are
>databases of who has travelled where, and when, for correlation analysis.
>Note that the crackdown on "valid IDs" for travel, for airlines, helps in
>this regard. I would not be surprised to learn that the airline databases
>are routinely fed to the Feds, so to speak. (Possibly via the FAA, acting
>as a kind of cutout.) Were I the head of the FBI, this is what I would
>want.

The airlines don't yet carefully check IDs (no SSN or DL # retained).  They
merely check that the name on your ID matches the reservation.


>
>The next step will be collecting hotel reservation databases. (Unlike the
>case with the FAA and the airlines, I don't know what kind of authority
>would grant them access to private hotel databases, but I expect they are
>working to find such authority somewhere. Maybe the infinitely malleable
>"regulation of commerce" clause, even if hotel stays are canonically _not_
>interstate trade!)
>
>(They already got access to the credit card databases, decades ago, of course.)
>

Are SSN and other ID required when opening a 'pre-paid' credit card
account?  That is, the ones for persons with poor credit who are required
to maintain a balance sufficient to pay off the charges?  Perhaps we could
put our heads together and determine a way to become franchised by MC/VISA
and offer 'affinity' type accounts with no address requirements (all
statments are sent via remailer/nym email).

-- Steve