More than two dozen Senators yesterday urged Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to scrap a plan to dismantle the Block Aircraft Registration Request (BARR) program, saying the change to lift privacy protections “sets a dangerous precedent.”
The letter, spearheaded by Senate General Aviation Caucus co-chair Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and co-signed by 24 other senators, says the new limits on use of the BARR “is a troubling reversal of a decade-old policy put in place to uphold the privacy rights of thousands of Americans.”
FAA, under direction of DOT, June 3 published a notice that it intended to prohibit use of BARR except in cases where an operator has a verifiable security threat. Managed on behalf of 3,000 operators by the National Business Aviation Association, the BARR program enables operators to request that their aircraft tail number be withheld from real-time flight tracking software.
The senators acknowledge DOT’s stated reasoning that the changes are necessary to promote greater transparency. “While all Americans support an open and transparent government process, maintaining the BARR program is about the preservation of personal citizens’ right to privacy and has nothing to do with shedding light on our federal government.”
“Transparency has everything to do citizens being able to see how the government carries out its business, not the other way around,” adds. Roberts. “I doubt any Kansan would associate allowing strangers to stalk the movements of private individuals as transparency.“
The letter further disputes claims that the changes will enable the Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement agencies from monitoring national airspace system users. Those agencies, the senators say, have always had the ability to monitor and track aircraft and limits on BARR won’t change that. “BARR simply prevents unauthorized, non-government actors from knowing the location of private citizens,” they say.
They also express concerns that that scaling back BARR will facilitate cyber-stalking of general aviation aircraft owners. “We also are concerned this decision sets a dangerous precedent for the ability of the government to disseminate the travel information of any citizen, regardless of the mode transportation.”
The senators point to concerns expressed over the changes by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable, the American Civil Liberties Union and the aviation community. Further, they say, Congress is debating the issue as part of the FAA reauthorization bill. “It is premature to unilaterally implement a regulation on a legislative issue currently before Congress,” they say.
No comments:
Post a Comment