Federal lawsuit challenges data collection under Secure Flight program News
Federal lawsuit challenges data collection under Secure Flight program

[JURIST] Four people filed suit Thursday against the Transportation Security Administration [official website] in an Anchorage federal court alleging that the agency illegally collected information about passengers in testing the Secure Flight Program [official website] last fall. Earlier this month, Department of Homeland Security [official website] Secretary Michael Chertoff said that privacy concerns about the program were being overstated [JURIST report]. However, in July, a Government Accountability Office report [PDF text] concluded that the TSA violated the 1974 Privacy Act [text] by collecting personal information on people without their knowledge [JURIST report] and also collected data to test the Secure Flight program without Congressional approval [JURIST report]. The lawsuit is based on a provision of federal law that allows individuals to know what data was collected and review it; the four plaintiffs want access to the information TSA collected [Wired report] about them. The agency said they have no such information, which led the plaintiffs to argue that the records were not adequately searched. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Ku Klux Klan founded

The US hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan was founded on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a reaction to reconstruction efforts following the Union victory in the American Civil War. The group would later become notorious for its attacks on Black Americans, being targeted by the Enforcement Act of 1871, which imposed civil and criminal liability for deprivation of constitutional rights. Read the Enforcement Act of 1871.  

Hamid Karzai born

On December 24, 1957, Hamid Karzai was born in Karz, Afghanistan. He would go on to become in 2004 his country's first elected president after the end of Taliban rule in 2001.