U.S. Government Is Monitoring All Global Entry Members Daily | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Government Is Monitoring All Global Entry Members Daily

newsweek.com

36 pointsbenguild36 comments

Saving you a click: the government has a cron job that runs once each night checking for new entries in law enforcement databases across the US.

Wouldn't we be concerned if a trusted traveller program didn't do this?

I have to admit my admiration for these news outlets who manage to come up with mostly technically true headlines that still don't represent at all the core of the article.

Thanks for saving me a click - that's why I always scan the comments before following a link :)

Newsweek at this point is a poster child for low quality click bait journalism unfortunately.

I’m of an age where the name Newsweek still has some inertial value of quality (and, in fact, I somewhat preferred it to Time). Sad to see what it’s become.

I was mildly in the Time camp for whatever reason although they were pretty much made from the same mold and hired from the same schools.

But, leaving aside the state of journalism generally, the days of a lot of us getting our information from weekly or monthly magazines--and maybe the evening network news sometimes--went out a long time ago. I never subscribed to a daily newspaper because I didn't actually live in the city.

Well, it's a little more than that. They also look at private lists airlines maintain about unruly passengers.

I'm more concerned about choosing a batch approach instead of an event based architecture.

Jokes aside, it means people on the run can get through it for several hours, right?

They probably have a separate "all-points bulletin" process for urgent cases.

Insanity! The US government is checking the identity and background of entrants to the US!

Global Entry is the name of the program available only to US citizens who have undergone a background check and application.

This isn’t them monitoring people with visas.

Permanent residents(green card holders) are eligible as well I think.

While they are in the US. Shoot, they may never have left the US!

A warrantless search that’s a cronjob? Seems that for some people, if the tech is simple then that’s ok! To me, that’s still a rights violation whether it’s a cronjob or not.

Is it a rights violation? When you sign up for Global Entry it's pretty clear that criminal history will disqualify you. That's kind of the entire point of the program (pre-clearance to validate a low risk).

The fact that they just repeat the same background check you do when you apply, doesn't seem out of place.

What is being searched here? The fourth amendment only applies to your property and possessions.

Yes. Why do we need a trusted traveler program?

It's a convenience for frequent/wealthy travelers and for CBP to reduce the number of people they need to screen.

The program lets you come in to the country on a fast path when you're a low-risk traveler. For that to work you need constant evidence of being a low-risk traveler.

They're not standing outside your home to see if you're smoking weed. They're scanning DBs to see if you've gone from low-risk person to "currently being investigated".

A friend lost her GE recently and the only link I can think of is that a relative of hers was being investigated for visa fraud.

I have all of Global Entry, TSA Pre, and Clear and it's obviously a voluntary choice between convenience and privacy. The last of them has face and eye scans and fingerprints and the rest of them have my photo and fingerprints and consent to do whatever.

I think a lot of people don't realize just how strict Global Entry is.

You're supposed to declare all food items that you bring into the US for inspection, whether it's permitted or not.

Flyertalk.com has plenty of people posting about forgetting a small food item in their luggage, USCBP finds it and their Global Entry is cancelled before they get home.

Thanks for highlighting this. I’m in the process of getting GE (just need to do interview) and wasn’t aware. Will definitely be careful about this.

What about the aspect of monetary loss due to no fault of your own? A citizen pays hundreds of dollars and schedules a whole interview to get GE, then schedules their travel layovers expecting to have this convenience. But since a family member pops up in a database they can just cancel yours. I wonder if this includes your phone number popping up on a geofence warrant dragnet search?

Global entry has an application fee of $100, or is included with the $50 Nexus program.

The “interview” I did for Nexus was shorter than some passport controls at the border. It was a non event.

They are very clear that it is a privilege, and that they can take it away for a variety of reasons outside of your control.

You still pay the application fee even if you never qualify.

I wouldn't consider searching through PACER "spying".

Aaron Swartz: searching through pacer gave him a bunch of grief.

I thought he was scraping jstor?

JSTOR happened a few years after[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#PACER

Arrests don't show up on PACER.

This seems like what I would have expected.

Germany has an opt-in policy for these programs: I would have to go to the Bundespolizei (federal police) at an Airport to declare that I am fine with regular data transfer of my police records. Only afterwards can I join these programs. Sorta double opt-in: opt-in in Germany, opt-in in the US.

So I am surprised this is news as it is exactly what I am told the program is doing. It's also not like this is a search on social media and alike (something that could also happen and would be a huge privacy breach).

Is the main issue here not the US but that other countries share this without better explanation / opt-in controls? And to be fair I hate that I would have to go to an Airport to kick this off. It's horrible UX but good privacy defaults.

Being featured by Newsweek under new hollowing ownership has become a much lower bar since the era when Paul Simon name-checked it

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JVdlpZ4M-Hw&pp=ygUXcGF1bCBzaW1...

Sounds pretty reasonable. These people voluntarily signed up for more scrutiny in exchange simplified screenings at the airport. Monitoring law enforcement databases daily to see if they are still eligible seems like something that they should be doing.

I really don’t think this is unreasonable given the tradeoff at the border.

Not just the border; Global Entry members have PreCheck access domestically.

The article suggests TSA also does some sort of check of regular PreCheck members when they travel. I wonder how that check is different.

This dovetails beautifully with today's parallel thread on automakers collecting and selling personal information from their customers (and customers' passengers).

The two seem very unrelated IMO.

Global Entry involves signing up for proactive scrutiny and proving you’re trustworthy enough to avoid standard levels of screening. This involves a background check and in-person interview, as well as periodic renewal requirements.

There is no analogy that ties the two together, and at best, they’re tangentially related by a vague notion of privacy.

No one expects privacy when they sign up for global entry.

No one expects a complete lack of privacy when getting into a car.

Doing their job.

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