For the second time in four months, information-privacy groups have discovered that a large airline provided passenger records to the government without telling its customers.

Instead of zeroing in on suspects based on real evidence of wrongdoing, it sweeps every airline passenger through a dragnet. Millions of innocent Americans will be accused and suspected of being terrorists.

Barry Steinhardt ACLU

Northwest Airlines supplied millions of names to the government for a project on aviation security in late 2001, according to records obtained by a privacy-rights group under the Freedom of Information Act.

JetBlue Airways last year acknowledged it forked over computer data on 1.1 million passenger names in 2002 to a Pentagon contractor investigating security issues. Privacy advocates assailed the admission, and JetBlue apologized to its customers. JetBlue is being sued by passengers in class-action lawsuits.

Northwest, the world's fourth-largest carrier, confirmed a Washington Post report Saturday that it gave NASA information on passengers who flew from October through December 2001.

Northwest would not say how many passengers' records were shared, but the Transportation Department estimates that more than 10 million passengers traveled on Northwest flights during that time.

NASA kept Northwest's passenger name records — which usually include credit card numbers, telephone numbers and addresses — until September 2003, NASA documents show.

Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said Sunday that the airline's voluntary cooperation with the government did not violate its privacy policy, which specifically prohibits the sale of customers' information. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the group that obtained the records, says Northwest policy assures passengers "complete control" over information they provide the airline.

Privacy groups said the passing of passenger information to the government is chilling news for the 100 million or so Americans who fly each year.

"Who knows what other secret programs involving passenger data exist in far-flung corners of the government?" says David Sobel, general counsel for EPIC. It plans to file a complaint with the Transportation Department and sue NASA for more information.

Documents obtained under FOIA are posted on EPIC's Web site: www.epic.org.

The admissions by JetBlue and Northwest highlight a controversial data-mining program the government is trying to establish called Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System II, or CAPPS II. Its purpose is to assess whether travelers pose security risks by cross-matching airlines' information about them with records in law enforcement and commercial databases.

"Instead of zeroing in on suspects based on real evidence of wrongdoing, it sweeps every airline passenger through a dragnet," says Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Millions of innocent Americans will be accused and suspected of being terrorists."

The ACLU has asked the Department of Homeland Security for information about whether other airlines are involved in secret security projects.

When JetBlue admitted in September that it shared passenger data with the government, Northwest officials said they would not divulge such information. Northwest on Sunday also would not comment on a 2002 report in The Washington Times that in late 2001 NASA quietly sought up to 15 million passenger records from Northwest to assess potential threats. Neither Northwest nor NASA would say if the data, from July through September 2001, were handed over.

© Copyright 2004 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

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