404 Media⁠67%

The SEC Bought Airline Data to Monitor Flights Worldwide ⁠63%

By Joseph Cox⁠74%

8/4/2026, 6:55:10 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 12 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Unattributed Quote, and Pessimism Bias, with Ambiguity (Equivocation) as the most egregious example at 44% saturation with 62 hits. Analysis detected 413 faulty-reasoning hits from 141 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 50.7% and a BS Rank of ⁠63% (10,398 of 27,655 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 62.40% of the article peer group.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) bought access to what it described as more than a billion airline ticketing records, related to not just U.S. domestic flights or those landing in the country, but also flights between foreign countries, according to SEC documents obtained by 404 Media. 
A group of the world’s airlines, including Delta, United, and American, previously sold the data under the company name ARC; that is where the SEC bought the data from. 
ARC, or the Airlines Reporting Corporation, stopped selling airline ticketing records after repeated coverage from 404 Media and pressure from lawmakers last year. 
But the newly obtained records provide additional insight into the breadth of data that airlines were selling without their customers' knowledge, and that law enforcement agencies were tapping into, likely without a warrant. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 2.2%404 Media: 3.5%Confirmation Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.6%404 Media: 0.6%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 4.6%404 Media: 3.4%Availability Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.8%404 Media: 1.3%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.5%404 Media: 0.4%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 1.0%404 Media: 2.3%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 9.7%404 Media: 5.1%Framing Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.6%404 Media: 0.5%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.6%404 Media: 0.6%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.1%404 Media: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 1.2%404 Media: 2.3%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 23.4%Joseph Cox: 2.5%404 Media: 1.4%Pessimism Bias23.4%This article: 23.4%Joseph Cox: 14.5%404 Media: 9.5%Negativity Bias23.4%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.9%404 Media: 1.3%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.4%404 Media: 0.7%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.0%404 Media: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.7%404 Media: 0.7%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.0%404 Media: 0.4%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 1.0%404 Media: 0.9%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.0%404 Media: 0.2%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.0%404 Media: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 16.3%Joseph Cox: 1.4%404 Media: 0.8%Recency Bias16.3%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.6%404 Media: 0.3%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.1%404 Media: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.3%404 Media: 0.3%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.1%404 Media: 0.3%Straw Man0.0%This article: 33.3%Joseph Cox: 2.7%404 Media: 2.8%Appeal to Authority33.3%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 1.1%404 Media: 1.1%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.8%404 Media: 1.0%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.0%404 Media: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 16.3%Joseph Cox: 7.6%404 Media: 6.8%Hasty Generalization16.3%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.5%404 Media: 0.3%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.7%404 Media: 0.6%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 23.4%Joseph Cox: 5.2%404 Media: 4.5%Appeal to Emotion23.4%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.3%404 Media: 0.7%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 16.3%Joseph Cox: 1.3%404 Media: 1.7%Post Hoc (False Cause)16.3%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.0%404 Media: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 1.4%404 Media: 0.6%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.2%404 Media: 0.3%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.2%404 Media: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 23.4%Joseph Cox: 1.6%404 Media: 2.6%Anecdotal23.4%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.0%404 Media: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 44.0%Joseph Cox: 3.4%404 Media: 1.7%Ambiguity (Equivocation)44.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.0%404 Media: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.1%404 Media: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.0%404 Media: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.1%404 Media: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.0%404 Media: 0.2%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 33.3%Joseph Cox: 3.4%404 Media: 2.7%Unattributed Quote33.3%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 2.1%404 Media: 1.4%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 16.3%Joseph Cox: 8.4%404 Media: 9.3%Biased Writer Voice16.3%This article: 23.4%Joseph Cox: 1.7%404 Media: 1.3%Indoctrination23.4%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 1.8%404 Media: 0.6%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 0.1%404 Media: 0.0%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Joseph Cox: 6.3%404 Media: 2.7%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

141 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker21%attributed speech112writer words
Selected voice

ARC

100%flagged-word coverage
29 attributed words100% of attributed speech92% writer coverage
0%22.5%45.0%Unattributed Quote-42.0 ptsWriter: 42.0%ARC: 0.0%0.0%Indoctrination-29.5 ptsWriter: 29.5%ARC: 0.0%0.0%Biased Writer Voice-20.5 ptsWriter: 20.5%ARC: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.