--- From: "Jane Black" <jane_blackat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: At Justice, NSEERS Spells Data Chaos Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 10:02:27 -0400 Hi Declan, Thought this might be of interest to Politech readers& At Justice, NSEERS Spells Data Chaos This shadowy program has gathered extensive personal data on immigrants. But who has the info, and what's it being used for? Answers are hard to find I'm holding in my hands documents that don't exist, according to a Justice Dept. spokesman. The forms -- 21 pages worth -- are from 7 of the 76 regional bureaus of the Immigration & Naturalization Service, a bureaucracy formerly part of Justice that moved to the new Homeland Security Dept. on Mar. 1. These forms list anywhere from a dozen to three dozen questions presented to 130,000 males last winter, mostly Muslim immigrants required to "special register" with the INS so that the government could keep better tabs on foreign nationals. Each form is different. All ask for basic descriptive information such as eye color, height, weight, and family history. But others go much further. In Arlington, Va., INS forms asked for personal bank-account and credit-card information. The Cleveland form asked immigrants on student visas to report any affiliations with campus social, religious, or political groups When I asked Justice spokesman Jorge Martinez about the documents I obtained from the American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF), an immigrant rights advocacy group, he declared: "Do not tell me you have forms. You do not. If you have something, it's something that Homeland Security created. As far as I'm concerned, those never existed." Sorry, Mr. Martinez. You may not want to acknowledge the forms' existence, but immigration attorneys -- who accompanied clients to the INS in December and January -- made copies. Though INS officials were supposed to enter all information directly into a computer, attorneys reported that clients were often asked to fill out the government forms in the waiting room, according to the AILF. In some cases, immigrants were given the forms as a guide to questioning. Some forms have the INS logo at the top, others are untitled&. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2003/tc2003052_6532_tc073.htm Jane Black Reporter BusinessWeek Online 212.512.2227 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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