FC: BusinessWeek: "At Justice, NSEERS Spells Data Chaos"

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

From: "Jane Black" <jane_black () businessweek com>
To: <declan () well com>
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






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