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Amtrak thinks it’s OK to spy on passengers because it makes the trains run on time

Posted on January 7, 2019June 25, 2025 by Dissent

Edward Hasbrouck writes:

Buried in the final 500-page PDF file of redacted and munged e-mail messages released by Amtrak in December 2018 in response to a FOIA request we made in 2014, we got the first hint at an answer to one of the questions that originally prompted our request:

What did Amtrak  think was its legal basis for requiring passengers to show ID and provide other information, and for handing this data over to DHS components and other police agencies for general law enforcement purposes?

When US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) asked Amtrak to start transmitting passenger data electronically, it described this as a request for “voluntary” cooperation, noting that while the law requires airlines to collect and transmit this data to CBP, “these mandates do not currently extend to land modes of transportation” (as they still don’t today).

Read how Amtrak took “voluntary” cooperation and somehow morphed it into a federal mandate that was never mandated –  on Papers, Please!

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