Interview of the USDHS Senior Privacy Officer Ms. Mary Ellen Callahan on her visit to Lithuania
October 29, 2010
The USDHS Senior Privacy Officer, Ms. Mary Ellen Callahan, visited Lithuania while touring through Baltic countries and Finland. She wanted to inform the institutions of these countries about the Passenger Name Record (PNR) system which soon will be negotiated by Washington and Brussels. The European Parliament has to approve the agreement as well.
“We want to make sure that any new agreement will allow to maintain operational efficiency of PNR, and though the use of information will be flexible the privacy will be protected”, - M.E. Callahan said during the meetings with the representatives of the Ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs.
The PNR system authorizes airlines to release travel information, e.g. passport number, names of accompanying persons, of all passengers traveling from Europe to the U.S. to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. However, Washington is especially interested in dates of travel and point of destination because this particular information allows various U.S. services to conduct effective prevention of terrorism.
According to Mary Ellen Callahan, CBP has been gathering the information about anybody coming to the U.S. since 2001. Currently the agreement regarding the exchange of PNR with the EU signed in 2007 is being executed. However, the European Parliament has yet approved it seeking that Washington and EU would renegotiate.
“PNR was used 600 times and nearly always it was released to the Department of Justice seeking to raise charges for terrorism and international crimes.”- M.E. Callahan explained.
Mr. Callahan stated that various U.S. and EU institutions had done multiple inspections on the system of such data exchange and so far no violations had been detected.
The officer emphasized that the U.S. considers the current system highly effective. She told a story how PNR helped to catch David Headley who was responsible for Mumbai attacks in India in 2008 and also had a plan to attack Danish cartoonist who had created a cartoon about Mohamed that enraged the Muslims.
“The CBP receives the information 72 hours before the flight. (…) Even when you have ESTA we do not know that you are coming for sure before this time limit. What if you decide to travel through Pakistan – it is not very usual to travel to the U.S. from Vilnius through Pakistan. PNR is used to track down unknown terrorists or to check known names, also to find unknown individuals who potentially might be of interest”, - M.E. Callahan explained.