FC: Ross Stapleton-Gray on state department sharing visa info

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2003 00:08:29 -0700
To: declan () well com, politech () politechbot com
From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <amicus () well com>
Subject: Re: FC: State Department sharing JPEG visa photos with CIA,
  others?
In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20030908204314.02078388 () mail well com>


At 01:20 AM 9/9/03 -0400, Nick Kralevich wrote:
> What's interesting about this year's change is that all applications are
> now submitted electronically.  Included with each application is a JPEG
> photo of the person submitting the application.
>
> In the past, even the paper versions of the Diversity Visa have been
> subject to privacy concerns.  Now that the data is being submitted
> electronically, one can only imagine how the data may be abused.
...

But this pales in comparison to plans to open up State's holdings of visa 
applicant information to law enforcement, as reported in the NYT back in 
January:

NATIONAL DESK | January 31, 2003, Friday
THREATS AND RESPONSES: LAW ENFORCEMENT; State Dept. Link Will Open Visa 
Database to Police Officers
[]
By JENNIFER 8. LEE (NYT) 946 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 12 , Column 1
ABSTRACT - American law enforcement officials across country will soon have 
access to database of 50 million overseas applications for US visas, 
including photos of 20 million applicants; database will provide personal 
information and is central feature of computer system linkup, scheduled 
within next month, that will tie together State Dept, intelligence 
agencies, FBI and police departments; photo (M)
...


That article is now in the NYT archives, so it'll cost you to retrueve it, 
but I don't recall any discussion there of oversight, or any proposal for 
monitoring, e.g., to detect if some deputy sheriff posted near the Mexican 
border is combing records for candidates to put the squeeze on to be drug 
mules, say.

Ross Stapleton-Gray, Ph.D., CISSP
amicus () well com
http://www.fuzzycloud.com






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