Quick, call the European data protection police!

PNR and travel reservation data are being used to make long flights more enjoyable.

No guns for commercial pilots?

there are plenty of ways to get stupid with guns in the cockpit, and pilots found a lot of them, but I'm still uneasy at the idea of ending the program, which is where the Washington Times says the administration is heading.

Travel reservation data is key to arrest of Iranian weapons smuggler

CBP brings down an Iranian weapons smuggler.

Travel reservation data is what allowed CBP to catch the smuggler:

The arrest of Khoshnevisrad was an unexpected bonus in those efforts, U.S. officials said. After tracking the businessman and his import company, Ariasa, for months, investigators with U.S. Customs and Border Protection discovered that the entrepreneur was traveling from Iran to the United States for what was believed to be his first visit to this country.

Ouch!

Filed under "the outcrowd":  DHS Official Returns To Steptoe & Johnson

EU unites to help US resettle Gitmo prisoners

it sounds like the EU is planning to help us, doesn't it?

“We understand, you have a big problem,” said one European official.

DHS-German "special relationship" bears fruit

And Der Spiegel covers it with the usual gratuitous snark.

Canadians hope Obama and Napolitano will be less demanding about border security

That's the gist of this "hope springs eternal" article from the Globe and Mail. According to Public Safety Minister Van Loan,

There's a concerted Canadian effort to raise and revisit border issues while the new Homeland Security secretary is settling into her job.

“I think we are doing a good job on our side of the border,” Mr. Van Loan said.

It's a message that successive Canadian governments don't believe was well heard by the Bush administration.

He's right about that last point.  The last administration thought the Canadians wanted two inconsistent things:  full authority to adopt less stringent security measures on Canadian soil and full rights for people in Canada to cross the border without careful scrutiny.