According to today’s New York Times, Chairman Susan Collins and Ranking Member Joseph Lieberman, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, sent a letter on October 16 to Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the escalating privacy controversy concerning JetBlue Airways’ acknowledgement that the company shared millions of passenger data records with government contractor Torch Concepts, news of which was reported by Wired on September 18. The letter to Rumsfeld stated that the Senators believed that this matter raised “disturbing questions about the reliability of safeguards in place at the Defense Department to protect Americans’ privacy,” and asked if the Pentagon had considered the issue of whether this constituted a violation of the Privacy Act.