Paranoia Alert: PADI Turns Over Database to FBI

If you learned to scuba dive in the past 3 years, then chances are, the government has most of the data you provided to PADI. In an effort to fight terrorists, the FBI has requested the Professional Association of Diving Instructors for the names, addresses and other information of almost every US Citizen who got their c-card since 2006. This was reported in a study by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) entitled “The Surveillance-Industrial Complex”, which highlights the various ways in which private companies have released possibly sensitive data to the government, to aid them on their “war on terror”.

This raises many issues about privacy, especially since PADI gave up the data voluntarily, without any subpoena or court order. According the PADI spokesperson and Vice President of Industry Relations Jeff Nadler that there were reports that mentioned rigging underwater explosions was mentioned in one of the training manuals, which was what triggered the search for the data.

“The biggest surprise is the aggressiveness with which the government is pursuing the concept of data mining,” said Jay Stanley, who wrote the report. “It really does make real the scenarios that privacy advocates have been worried about for decades. We are in the process of making every American a suspect.”