yawn. Must have been a slow news day at your local left-wing propaganda outlet.
A non-story. On international flights, don't the airlines get this info anyway when your passport is swiped on check-in??
And for domestic flights, they are not asking for anything that isn't on your ID anyway. (and they won't need your middle name) which you need to board the aircraft. How intrusive is it to ask your gender?? They are trying to eliminate false matches to watch lists. Up until now, it is each individual airline that determines which of its passengers to flag as SSSS and it's the airline's responsibility to crosscheck passengers against a central no-fly database. Now, the airlines will forward the info to DHS, and they will make the determination (not the airline) on who will be SSSS or who is no fly.
Anyone who thinks security procedures in the US are intrusive have never flown out of airports in Isreal or even Frankfurt. In Tel-Aviv, every passenger is individually interviewd by state security (people traveling together are interviewed separately), and depending on your answers to their questions and how they profile you, the interview can be as quick as 5 minutes or as long as an hour long interrogation involving a thurough search of you and your bags. Only after you get past them are you even allowed to check in. If anything, security in the US is not strict enough. But in fairness, for all the flack the TSA gets, they have done their job well for almost 8 years now.
