We all should have known that since Joe Lieberman was pushing DHS, it was a Very Bad Idea. I don't know if we understood at the time just how bad it was going to be, which goes for a lot else. Anyhow, from the Guardian:

Highly sensitive information about the religious beliefs, political opinions and even the sex life of Britons travelling to the United States is to be made available to US authorities when the European Commission agrees to a new system of checking passengers.

The EC is in the final stages of agreeing a new Passenger Name Record system with the US which will allow American officials to access detailed biographical information about passengers entering international airports.

n a strongly worded document drawn up in response to the plan that will affect the 4 million-plus Britons who travel to the US every year, the EU parliament said it 'notes with concern that sensitive data (ie personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and data concerning the health or sex life of individuals) will be made available to the DHS and that these data may be used by the DHS in exceptional cases'.

Fortunately, after the administration has used Real ID to set up a system of RFID-driven internal passport controls, we'll be able to extend this same system to Americans!

Because I know we'll all sleep more safely at night if the Bush administration knows who we Fuck.

Why, if we'd been able to get this system in place earlier, Diaper Davey Vitter (R-Canal Street Brothel) might still be a Senator today! Oh, wait....

Anyhow, of course the Republicans are doing to datamine the hell out of it and then sell everything off to the corps:

The EU parliament said it was concerned the data would lead to 'a significant risk of massive profiling and data mining, which is incompatible with basic European principles and is a practice still under discussion in the US congress.'

[Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor] warns: 'Data on EU citizens will be readily accessible to a broad range of US agencies and there is no limitation to what US authorities are allowed to do with the data.'

'If you are going to have this kind of agreement it should involve parliament and the data protection supervisor,' said Tony Bunyan of Statewatch, the civil liberties organisation that campaigns against excessive surveillance.

He warned that under the new system the data will be shared with numerous US agencies. 'The data protection supervisor and the European parliament are angry that they were not consulted,' Bunyan said. 'But they are also angry with a number of elements of the plan such as giving the US the absolute right to pass the data on to third parties.'

I don't think the Europeans understand that they, too, are emanations of the President's [sic] will....