 As of May 2018, all passengers flying in and out of the EU will be under surveillance. A new European law, the passenger name Record Directive, stipulates that the information of millions of passengers will be stored in enormous databases. Critics call this an unnecessary dragnet. But the European Commission says this is crucial in the fight against terrorism and organized crime. And oddly, the Commission also left a small hole in the net. The PNR directive does not apply to private flights. Members of the European Parliament spotted the loophole and proposed amendments to fix it. Yet the Commission and a majority of Europe's governments, working through a secretive procedure called TRILOG, reinstated the exception. This benefits those who use private planes. This includes the rich and the powerful, but also, according to the European Court files, drug runners, human traffickers and money-launderers. If every average passenger must be surveilled for security reasons, then why is Europe insistent on letting private aircraft fly under the radar?