Another five-year-old on the no-fly list: meet Sam Adams

Ted Adams -- the publisher of IDW comics -- named his little son "Sam Adams," a good, solid patriotic name. It's also a name on the TSA's no-fly list, and the five-year-old has spent his young life being harassed by airport security goons who think he's a terrorist.

Saw the article you posted on Boing Boing about the five year old on the no-fly list. My son, also five, is on that same list and it's a nightmare. Every time we fly with him, we can't use the computer terminals to check in and the attendant has to call some never named government agency to make sure he's not a terrorist. Some attendants joke it off but some are insanely serious about it. His seat always goes unassigned (even if it was assigned when the reservation is made) which always causes problems.

I've tried everything that anyone has suggested. There's a TSA form that you can fill out for this situation, which I did, but they won't tell you if they've removed your name. We got him a passport -- that didn't work. We've tried booking the tickets with his full name (including middle name), that didn't work. We tried booking the ticket under Master Samuel Adams, with still no luck.

Yeah, and if you think that's funny, imagine this kid's life when he's an adult and Every goddamned flight he takes involves an extra hour of hassle, a search, no assigned seats, being turned away, being humiliated, being harassed... There's a special circle of hell that's being prepared for the domestic fear-mongers who've helped the terrorists make Americans so very afraid. Link (Thanks, Ted!)

• [busydoingnothing]

  Man, I seriously hope everyone is right about 2012. We’ve gone far past the point of no return and into a whole new Dark Age. We need to start over with a clean slate.

• [Takuan]

  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/05/60minutes/main2066624.shtml

  the president of Bolivia???

• [foofoobar]

  I admire your balls Tom Neff – but the main point here is that the TSA should have an idea how old the names on the list are – e.g. Osama Bin Laden (for it is not he) is NOT a child. Gosh – easy isn’t it.
  The TSA is so obviously full of lying idiots that it should be pretty easy to circumvent them – which is really not what we want.
  The TSA should be replaced by people with honesty and brains.
  Yeah – I know – never going to happen in the USA…

• [qousqous]

  Curious. Sam Adams is also the name of one of the city commissioners (and now running for mayor). I wonder if he’s run up against this as well—surely we would have heard about that. Or maybe he’s on the list because he’s a bicycle-loving commie.

• [Xenu]

  It’s your NAME that makes you a terrorist. Not something you’ve done, not something you’ve been suspected of doing — but your NAME.

  So if there are any other Osama bin Laden’s around, you’re a terrorist too!

• [Porori]

  I posted this elsewhere, but will post it again here. This happened a bit over 2 years ago, but I think it`s still valid, as it was the TSA.

  -On a trip to the US, where I am a citizen – I was
  fingerprinted, photographed, had my baby strip searched in the middle of the airport, and left unattended, suitcase broken open because they were too lazy to open the clasp, had things inside my suitcase broken open and pierced to “check contents” and then tossed back in to leak on everything else, and then almost detained because my baby was naked (from the strip search!?!?) and posing a health hazard – which made us so late that we missed the flight…

  This was apparently all because I looked suspicious when telling my mother in law to meet me by such-and-such on the other side of immigration, and because it seems there is someone on the no-fly list who shares the same first three letters of their name with that of my son. We (my son and I) were pulled aside first and I was told that he was on the no-fly list… I pointed out that he was 1, and it was doubtful that the list was referring to him.

  They took my son away from me, strip searched him (held up by his hands) and left him on the floor (naked) on the other side of glass when they finished.
  Then they moved on to searching and interrogating me. I was asked what I was doing traveling with someone on the list, why I had talked to a non-US citizen on the way to immigration, and was told point blank that my son had no rights at this point, and that he would most likely have to be detained.

  I cried. I begged them to just let us go home! He`s a baby. He can`t possibly be on the list.

  Apparently they consider this resisting. I was told to shut up, did I want to be “detained” too? After about 15 minutes, they decided that my son didn`t pose a threat, and they plopped him (still naked) *outside* their little TSA booth – on the floor, in a busy airport. I could see him from inside, but wasn`t allowed to go get him. I`m guessing that they weren`t allowed to take him out of my sight. They never told me anything. I was terrified someone would just pick him up and run.

  I was scared to death that they`d never let me go home. After about an hour – possibly more as it was long enough that we completely missed our flight – they just let us go. A woman came and finally rehashed our search after getting my son from outside the booth (once you`ve been out there they have to check again, apparently.) She was nice, apologized for the inconvenience, etc. She was the only person there who didn`t have their name tag conveniently turned around backward or tucked into a pocket, covered by a sticker, etc.

  When we were finally released from the booth, I was stopped immediately by another presumably non-TSA security guard and told my son posed a health hazard by being naked, and that I needed to get clothes on him NOW or come with him to the office. I don`t think I`ve ever dressed my son so quickly.

  We missed our flight though and ended up staying overnight. I can`t tell you how scared I was going through the checkpoint the next day – but while they did pull us aside, they only did the typical wand check, and we passed through without a hitch. Different TSA people, totally different experience.

  I have been asked multiple times why I just didn`t complain a bunch and inform them of our rights, blah blah blah.
  When they`ve got your baby on the other side of glass, and are telling you that they might not let him leave the country with you…. You don`t want to risk anything. Nothing is worth losing my family.

  I only seriously thought about complaining once we were home and safe, but I only had the name of the one single nice person. And as time passed, I figured that as long as it had been since the event itself, it was a waste of time.

• [Anonymous]

  My 11 month infant is on the list. I’m now beginning the process of submitting a DHS-TRIP request to have him removed so he won’t face a lifetime of airport harassment. They should add a Do Not Name list to baby name books that includes the No Fly list.

• [Takuan]

  how about a free name-change for the millionth customer , they are almost there.

• [Takuan]

  A tale indeed.

  What “colour” are you? I ask from the perspective of one who sees no concept of “race”.

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Tom Neff, if you google around, you’ll find that article after article, dated from before 9/11, on the failures of American airport security. The airline industry lobbied heavily to reduce security requirements. After 9/11, they lobbied heavily for bailouts because they lost so much money when people were unwilling to fly.

  Here’s a question for you: what about that situation, or the post-9/11 world, mandated the creation of an overprivileged, unaccountable government department that’s ignoring everything we know about effective security?

  What would we use for security if we didn’t have DHS and the TSA? I hope we’d set up an organization that knows what it’s doing and takes its duties seriously.

  I know people who’ve done real security work. They would have spotted the “print your own forged boarding pass” loophole. They’d know that no airport is safe if Sky Harbor in Phoenix is wide open for four hours every night, because once someone is inside the security airlock at one airport, they’re also inside the airlock at any other airport they fly to. And they sure as hell wouldn’t be wasting vast amounts of effort, and bringing airport security into disrepute, by maintaining a nearly useless list that generates false positives 97.5% of the time.

  You tell me: what legitimate security interests are served by detaining and mistreating toddlers and their families because the kid’s name matches one on the list?

  What security interests are served by putting out a list that contains the isolated surname “McPhee,” thus bringing endless trouble to everyone who bears that name? What is there about our situation that makes it necessary to circulate that name without the accompanying information that it was once used as an alias by someone in Afghanistan who was suspected of having terrorist ties?

  The choice, as I suspect you know, is not between the TSA as currently constituted and having no security at all. What we want is real, sane, reasonable airport security. What we all know is that a system that detains a toddler because he’s named Sam Adams doesn’t qualify.

  Andy3000 (52), I’m not going to say “you’re kidding,” because I’m sure you’re not; but I wish you were. These guys are known terrorists. They’re on other publicly accessible lists of known terrorists. They know we know, we know they know. And they’re not on the no-fly list.

  I look forward to a change of administrations for many reasons, but not least among them is the hope that we can start working our way back to having a minimally competent government.

  Porori (62), that’s a dreadful story, and I’m truly sorry it happened to you. Can you say any more about it, like which airport it was? (If not, I can’t blame you.)

  Gilbert Wham (54), well said.

• [coaxial]

  @lizardman

  Umm… The TSA says no EIGHT year-old is on the no-fly list. This kid is FIVE.

  I think someone owes the TSA an apology.

• [qousqous]

  You know, it would really have been helpful if I had mentioned the city Sam Adams is running for mayor of—Portland, OR.

• [Anonymous]

  It makes people not even wanna fly or travel anymore. You have to worry about a 5 yr old being a terrorist.Now I have to worry about going somewhere and my name being on the no-fly list. I mean come one! A 5 yr old? what’s the worse thing he could’av done. spilled his milk during snack time? Yea, we’re all in danger. Its all about the governement controlling us all in yet another way and trying to make us fear them. Yet again giving the government more power and the people less control over their own lives. The government has so much hiding from society and most of us dont even know. why else would they detain a 5 yr old boy?

• [SanFranK]

  What gets me is all the buck-passing that goes on . . . the airlines pass it to TSA, then back to the airlines it goes . . . yet no one is responsible. It’s maddening!

• [Tom]

  @51: Abolishing the TSA as currently constituted does not equate to abolishing all airport security, although personally I wouldn’t have a problem with that. The reality is that right now, there is a far greater threat to me (a foreigner) from the organs of the state than there is from terrorists. On the (rare) occasions I can’t avoid travel to the U.S. I am painfully aware that one rent-a-cop having a bad day could ruin my life. I don’t give terrorism any thought at all.

  That said, there are obviously a variety of potential replacements for the TSA as it currently exists. One is to reform the TSA as it currently exists. Then it would no longer be the TSA as it currently exists. As many posters have said, “the TSA needs to be eliminated and replaced with something better”.

  When you claim that any agency replacing the TSA would be just like the TSA, you appear to be having difficulty with the concept of a federal agency that isn’t staffed by morons following policies that have no rational justifications. Given the history of federal agencies in the U.S. I can see where you’re coming from, but trust me: it is possible for government agencies to do their job competently. For example, despite legitimate concerns over illegal wiretapping and whatnot, the FBI has done a generally good job of counter-terrorism, which is after all a police problem, not a military problem.

  Another alternative to the TSA is indeed to hand responsibility for security back to airlines or airports. I see no problem with this. It worked extremely well prior to 9/11, and there is no reason to believe that the current system would have prevented the nineteen nitwits from getting on those planes.

• [Takuan]

  FBI? Competent?Hah!

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/05/AR2005060501213.html

• [avar1ce]

  Meh, my cousin has this same problem. He has a good Irish name, Michael O’Brien. Too bad one of the guys on the terrorist watch list does too.

  My cousin is 8.

• [LSK]

  The terrorists are successful: They’ve caused millions of hours of time to be wasted extraneously and THAT is their real goat. If we wanted to fight terrorism, we’d make it easier to board planes.

• [Wingo]

  I’m starting to think this is much creepier than we realize.

  The TSA obviously has some sort of Philip K. Dick-style Precogs that know what’s going to happen in the future, a la Minority Report.

  They apparently know that little Sam is going to actually become a terrorist 12 years in the future.

  What they don’t fully understand yet is that the reason this is so is because they are actually the ones that are going to drive him to it by hassling him at the airport his whole life.

  We need to consult Tom Cruise on this one.

• [Anonymous]

  These kids need to be trained to act appropriately when undergoing the “extra” TSA screening.

  Crying, and screaming their heads of about “bad touch!” and molestation, for example.

• [Takuan]

  I really wish you had not said that. We will be the door shortly. Don’t bother packing anything.

• [Agent 86]

  So, here’s what it sounds like…

  The kids ARE NOT ON THE NO FLY LIST!

  HOWEVER, someone with their name IS. The kids can’t be taken off the no fly list, because they are not on it in the first place. If they were on it, they would not eventually be allowed on the flight. They can not take off the person who is on the list (and shares their name), because there is supposedly a good reason for that person to be on the No Fly List.

  So, lets review.

  ~On the no fly list. (left blank)

  ~Have the ability to stop being screwed over. (left blank)

  ~Screwed over anyway. (check)

  That being said, I doubt 99.9% of the people who are actually on the list deserve to be there in the first place.

• [misterdna]

  Hello, my name is Robert Mitchell, and I’m also on the no fly list. BTW, there are about 20 Robert Mitchells just in my local phone book, so there must be 100s of Robert Mitchell stopped in airports every day. I’ve tried all the steps to get off the list, but still, I have to go through all the steps that little Sam Adams does. And it sucks. But it’s not what I any rational person would call a “nightmare,” as Sam’s whiny mom puts it. Talk about milking a situation for her 15 minutes of fame. It’s a stupid inconvenience, not a nightmare. Americans can be so lame.

• [Red Zebra]

  and this is just a 5 year old white kid.
  Imagine what it’d be like if you were an innocent 30 year old Arab-looking guy, who happened to have the same name as someone on the no-fly list… I’m sure there’s many of them.

• [Maddy]

  I too ended up on the list. I too sent off the paperwork they requested. They then sent back this great answer:

  “Where it was determined that a correction to records was warranted, these records were modified to address any delay or denial of boarding that you may have experienced as a result of the watch list screening process.”

  I.e., we’re not telling you if you are still on the list. So I wrote them back — “Hey, yes or no, am I on the list?”

  There one sentence reply:

  “This all the language we have available at this time.”

  Can we shine the bat signal up in the sky to the ACLU?

• [Georgia Tills]

  Apparently terrorists are wholely incapable of changing their names…just like how school shooters are wholly incapble of barging in with their guns blazing and skipping the whole metal detector /frisking/ bag banning routine.

  …and racist profiling is dumb too, /especially/ in this era of accessible Star Trek make-up. Ever seen White Chicks (2004)

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  They’d never keep it straight, and next thing you know they’d be doing it at the grocery checkout.

• [ill lich]

  Let this be a lesson to all parents– forget the regular names and go Hollywood. Don’t name your kids common names that might be shared with possible terrorists, name them Dweezil and Moon-Unit, and Chastity, and Elijah Blue, and Shiloh, and . . .

• [Jeff]

  For anyone who saw 60 minutes last year when one of the reporters tried to get the head of TSA to answer the question: “Why is it so hard to get a name removed from the no fly list?” her response was to say that it takes time. It was as if she were being asked to reveal occult secrets.

• [Tom Neff]

  FFB, I am just trying to think the problem through, which should not take balls but apparently does these days.

  People who believe there should not be any airport security are certainly entitled to their beliefs, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon, and if it did in the US, there are a lot of countries you couldn’t fly to anymore.

  People who think the airlines should take back the security job ought to take a look at the financial pages: most carriers are teetering on the brink of insolvency or have run off the edge of it and are windmilling frantically in space like Wile E. Coyote. They can’t afford to clean their bathrooms every flight, let alone install state of the art security.

  The TSA was created and staffed in response to a need for LOTS of checkers NOW, on a generous but hardly Pentagon-caliber budget. They got what you’d expect, a large workforce willing to work for fairly low wages either out of belief in the crisis – and some of those people generated the early horror stories – or because it was good money from their economic rung’s vantage point.

  Which reminds me of the lovely little class component in some of the TSA backlash. Watch how readily people call them “trash,” “morons,” “scum” and so forth, or say things like “go back to the shoe store.” Bet they like Nasss Car huh?! That kind of thing really burns me.

  These people aren’t our inferiors. A lot of them are ex-police, ex-military. They take on thankless, grueling work where any slipup could mean a CNN headline, and they’re treated like vermin by some of the people they’re trying to protect.

  I have to close for sleep, there will be more.

• [rsk]

  Y’all do realize that all of this airline
  security is absolutely useless, right? The opponent:

• is not a one-trick pony
• has demonstrated the willingness to spend many
  years planning
• is not stupid
• has demonstrated the ability to identify and exploit the system
• is well-funded
• is willing to die

  Pathetic security theater such as we see from
  the TSA and the rest of the fools at the DHS will not deter such an opponent; it’s far more
  likely to amuse them…while they do what any
  competent attacker would do: evade countermeasures.

  I’m sure, somewhere in remote locations, news
  of fiascos like this will eventually reach them.
  And they will laugh their asses off at the
  knowledge that we did this to ourselves.

[MonkeyBoy]

Biometrics & RFID
This is just a push to have a mandated National ID and mandated IDs for foreigners in the US that contain biometric information and RFIDs.

Once the now-fly list goes biometric, then it will be obvious that people who have the same name as someone on the no-fly list but don’t match the biometrics are ok.

This is basically be an ugly nuisance to make people clamor for IDs that might keep them from being hassled.

[Anonymous]

How come these no fly lists don’t have basic data, such as date of birth/height/ethnic origin etc next to the names. Surely that would knock out many of these situations……or is that too sensible?

[Eduardo Padoan]

“The kids ARE NOT ON THE NO FLY LIST!”

No one is on the list. Just names.

[vsync]

The kids can’t be taken off the no fly list, because they are not on it in the first place. If they were on it, they would not eventually be allowed on the flight.

The mere existence of such a list is repugnant to the Constitution, to our natural rights, and to common decency.

[risser]

Can we all just stop flying and put the airlines out of business already?

Then we can start afresh.

[Hawkman]

re: Biometrics & RFID

I believe Monkeyboy is on to something; is this just a way for the feds to force the mandate for Real ID?

This headline just popped up on Google News:

from CNET

Homeland Security to press ahead with Real ID

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9848732-7.html?tag=nefd.top

BTW – I recently heard that the estimated number of names on the no fly list is 800 thousand worldwide.

[MattMGenCon]

After reading this blog and piecing in some information from the local papers and other sources, I am firmly of the opinion that we are all taking a ride on the short bus when it comes to the TSA. The system was thrown together as commented earlier as a knee jerk reaction to the events of 9/11. Then the beaurocratic machine took over feeding the beast and it grew. Now the behemouth is alive and well in our airports.

MEANWHILE, back at the lab, the mad scientists are creating the new beast, one which will be more palatable to the average citizen. The new beast being the REAL ID system. It could and would work if handled intelligently and realistically, but as with every other government program, it will be beaten to a pulp at every angle by different special interest groups, gov’t profiteering, and beaurocratic BS, thus leaving us with another garbage program.

Civil libertarians grouse that the Real ID will be a invasion of privacy, big brother, etc… The truth is Big Brother already exists. He may not be sentient yet, but he exists. The information is out there and every move we make is monitored in one form or another. Granted 99% of the info is ignored, useless crap, or filed away in one folder or other never to be seen or heard from again. Personally, I have no problem with the government knowing about what I do. I am doing nothing I care to hide from anyone in the government. Until they pass a law making the “Naked Fun With Produce” website illegal (just kidding), I don’t see that monitoring of any of my activities as a problem. Between the fact that they can find out anything about you if they look in the right place anyway and the fact that we NEED security and protection from the elements that wish us harm, I say go ahead with it on the Real ID program. At least it will eliminate a certain amount of the false hits on the watch lists. Perhaps this is why we have such a horrid system in place now. Perhaps, it is greasing the tracks to ease acceptance on the Real Id or another system.

The lack of security is just ludicrous. We had security prior to 9/11 and it worked up until someone decided to crash a plane into some buildings, and any system will work until someone finds a way to circumvent it. Thus, comes the problem with the Real ID system. Fred in Walla Walla will want his special ID to have a picture of his cat on it. Mary in Miami will want a beach scene. Sen. Harmon from whereever will want the jobs of making the IDs in his state and will do anything to get it passed. Congressman Whomever will want his buddies company to do the background checks (although the buddy isn’t qualified) and make a lot of money. Tommy in Tupelo will want his past indescretions removed from the record and will creat a stink over his records being attached. Willie in Wilmington who works for the ID system will take $250 to make a fake one for Billie the Kid. Hank the hacker will get a kick out of breaking into the system and expunging the records of his buddy who owes him money. Habib the terrorist will find one of these people to make it possible for him to get an ID. In short, as with every government agency, people will still be involved in the process and people (in part not as a whole) are self centered, greedy, and corrupt. This creates yet another system which won’t work.

Now that I have spouted off about the problems, do I have a better idea? No, but I see the ID system as an inevitable future (Read Revelations in the Bible) This Real Id will also lead to the end of the monetary system eventually and a worldwide “credits” system (Some will also argue this is not a bad idea), the end of personal freedom to the point of anonymity ( a point which if you are doing nothing wrong what does it matter), and better government control of us all (Now that one is a scary thought). Do I think it can be stopped or changed? For the better? not really. For the worse? of course.

So you say “ok smart a@@, so what are you gonna do about it?” Probably, gripe on here, pray alot, and otherwise bury my head in the sand and wait for it all to be over. Hey, it may not be for everyone but it works for me.

[Takuan]

If a machine is built to do a job,and one day that job goes away… what will that machine do?

Build enough prisons to be a significant part of your economy and they will always be full.

[snackcake]

not to mention all the guff he is going to get when he is of drinking age…

[Takuan]

TSA personnel are not volunteers. Apart from those that would do it for free and strip searches, the rest are in it for a paycheck. Not altruism.

People have to take moral responsibility for what they do. The “only following orders” excuse is just that, an excuse.

[Porori]

Takuan; I`m unmistakably white. My son is half Japanese, but barely looks it. We live in Japan.

Teresa; It was the Chicago O’Hare airport, October of 2005. I have made up my mind that I will never visit the US as long as these silly “security” measures are in effect, and I`m definitely not worried that they`re going to come track me down about it. If they feel a burning desire to look up my name and stick me on the list for talking about what happened, they really have way too much time on their hands.
I know that my story has discouraged quite a few friends of ours from visiting the US, as if something like that happens to an actual citizen (in my case, at least. My son only has Japanese citizenship.) who knows what could happen to a non-citizen.

I end up feeling like I would be safer under the umbrella of another country`s citizenship though.

[JohnnyWeird]

@15: Yeah, if he kicks back with a Heineken, Americans everywhere will weep.

More seriously, this is garbage. I don’t know how they designed this process of no-fly listing, but it’s pretty clear that they did so under the influence of stupid.

[thegid]

How do the ticket agents know yr 5-yr old’s name? Did he show them his driver’s license?

Next time, try buying a ticket for Samuel Adams. Or Michael Adams? Or whatever his middle name is?

[The Lizardman]

@ Coaxial (#7)

You are correct, I apologize to the TSA for the interim of 3 years or until an 8 year old gets harassed in this fashion. Now I have to go catch a flight to Turkey because the trans Atlantic bridge is just a dream I had last night

[Takuan]

Porori: Thank you for your reply. We have something in common.

While we are discussing; Japan recently introduced severe foreigner control measures. Do you have any stories to compare?

[Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

The TSA claims there are no eight-year-olds on the no-fly list. What they mean is that they maintain a system that makes security personnel scrutinize everyone whose name matches a name on the list, whether or not it’s reasonable to suspect them.

There’ve been a number of cases of little kids getting pulled out of line for extra scrutiny because they have the wrong name. The youngest one I know of was four.

The TSA says they’ve changed their policies, and little kids aren’t supposed to be given that treatment any more, but their employees keep doing it anyway.

Some of the very common names that are on the list:

Gary Smith
John Williams
Robert Johnson
Dennis Wilson
David Nelson
Edward Allen
John Lewis
John Graham
James Moore

– and now, Sam Adams.

As a commenter in another weblog put it:

From http://www.namestatistics.com:

ROBERT is the #3 most common male name.
3.143% of men in the US are named ROBERT.
Around 3,850,175 US men are named ROBERT.

JOHNSON is the #2 most common last name.
0.81% of last names in the US are JOHNSON.
Around 2025000 US last names are JOHNSON.

A quick Yahoo search returned 12,156 people named “Robert Johnson” with listed phone numbers.

Great friggin list. Glad that’s not my name.

The list is so carelessly compiled that it includes surnames with just an initial letter — for instance, “T. Kennedy.” That meant everyone surnamed Kennedy whose given name starts with T was getting the special treatment, including Senator Ted Kennedy. They also have unaccompanied surnames; for instance, “McPhee.” That meant they were scrutinizing everyone named McPhee, including Sister Glenn Anne McPhee, a 62-year-old Dominican nun who’s the Secretary for Education of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Wired has a great list of high-ranking military and government personnel who match the list and thus keep getting snagged.

There are people on the list who should never have been put on it in the first place. As Takuan just pointed out, Evo Morales, the President of Bolivia is on it. (Actually, he’s on it three times.) So is Nabih Berri, who at the time this was discovered was head of the Lebanese Parliament, and had just met with Condoleezza Rice. There are also people on it who are known to be dead — fourteen out of the nineteen 9/11 suicide bombers, for instance, along with Saddam Hussein and Zacharaias Moussaoui (both of whom were in prison with no prospects of release when they were put on the list), and Francois Genoud, who does have terrorist ties but has been dead for more than a decade.

Who’s not on the list? A significant number of known terrorists. It’s never been made clear why they’re not listed.

Why this is a big honking problem:

1. It’s not a small inconvenience. People whose names are on the list consistently report having to show up hours earlier than everyone else if they want to make their flight, and still sometimes missing it because they haven’t cleared the security check.

2. The TSA has twice announced that it is reviewing all the names and cutting the list in half. In spite of this, the number of false positives remains high, and the list itself has been growing by about 200,000 names a year. Most recent estimate: 755,000 names, and growing. If you don’t have a unique surname, you could find out next time you fly that your name has been added to the list.

3. Getting off the list is a long, tedious process that doesn’t always work. How you get onto the list is something the TSA remains unwilling to discuss.

4. The longer the list gets, the less use it is. Vast amounts of energy and resources are wasted on it. Meanwhile, the overall airport security system the TSA oversees is full of holes. It’s a FEMA-grade snafu. One of the TSA’s own websites contained so many violations of basic security procedures and safeguards that investigators initially thought it was a phishing site.

5. The watch list includes people who have no known ties to international terrorists groups, but are “believed to be domestic terrorists.” This supposedly means abortion clinic bombers, firebombing environmental extremists, and the like; but given the indiscriminate nature of the known portions of the no-fly list, and the Bush administration’s zero batting average when it comes to limiting their use of expanded powers to the purposes for which they were ostensibly intended, “domestic terrorism” could mean almost anything.

6. According to USA Today, a recent report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) has said that:

“Homeland Security has not done enough to use the list more broadly in the private sector, where workers applying for jobs in sensitive places such as chemical factories could do harm.

[Leonard Boyle, Director of the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, which maintains the list] also urges that the list be used by for screening at businesses where workers could “carry out attacks on our critical infrastructure that could harm large numbers of persons or cause immense economic damage.”

That is: having your name on the no-fly list may, in the future, affect more than your ability to travel.

7. The TSA has a consistent record of lying about what it’s doing to Congress, major government agencies, the press, and everyone else within earshot. It’s averse to transparency. It doesn’t hesitate to violate regulations and break the law. And when it vows to repent, nothing changes. See, for example, Bruce Schneier’s posts on the whole Secure Flight clstrfck:

13 Jan. 2005: Secure Flight Privacy/IT Working Group
31 Jan. 2005: TSA’s Secure Flight
27 March 2005: TSA lied about protecting passenger data
28 March 2005: GAO’s report on Secure Flight
24 July 2005: Secure Flight
15 August 2005: DHS seeking to remove Congressional oversight of Secure Flight
26 September 2005: Secure Flight Privacy/IT Working Group Report finally made public
02 Jan. 2007: DHS’s own Privacy Office releases disturbing report on Secure Flight

Note: Bruce says 24 July 2005 is the one to read if you’re only reading one.

8. There’s no guarantee that the TSA isn’t going to make travel even more difficult in times to come.

[Porori]

Takuan;

At least the Japanese measures are polite and I certainly don`t feel threatened by them. I can`t say I`m *happy* about the changes of course…

But still, if Japan can manage to get me in the country with less hassle, it`s a lot better than the US. I`m a US citizen, and Japan treating me better says a lot in my book. No hassle is best, but it would take a LOT to make the system worse than what I experienced on our US trip.

While the measures are a pain, it really feels expected – being as almost every other country out there is doing something similar. I would like them to be a bit less strict when it comes to those with valid long term visas though.

I think far too many people are directing their energies at complaining about how they are treated in technically foreign countries (I say technically because I have lived here since I was a legal child, so it`s a bit of a stretch to call it “foreign”) when they should really be complaining about how they are treated in their home country. But for some reason, the US is excused, while they throw fits about an extra few minutes passing through immigration in Japan.

[Enoch_Root]

You guys are thinking about this ALL WRONG. The TSA is actually insanely clever. The massive amount of annoyance in this kids life is going to cause him to go John Rambo on everyone, find the actual terroristical Sam Adams and bring him to swift justice.

[thordora]

What I don’t get is why there isn’t some sort of query against DOB. Even if the agent isn’t able to make a common sense decision, then couldn’t the system tell itself, duh, he’s 5, not 37.

[Takuan]

So.

It seems to me that even one such as yourself, who has been attacked in the vilest way, would be able to at least tolerate reasonably strict security measures if a modicum of basic human decency, politeness and common sense were employed.

Back to the TSA staff: Why are you so damned rude and willfully inflexible? Are you so badly abused by TSA adminstration that you must release your rage on others?

[David]

Why the heck did they name their kid after a beer? The No Fly list will be the least of his problems. ;-)

[Anonymous]

i like how the government thinks that no two people ever have the same name.

[jonathan_v]

I’ve always thought the brilliance of the no-fly list is the simple fact that it promotes actually threatening individuals to adopt new and unknown aliases… while tying up the resources that would otherwise be used to safeguard the country with mindless harassment of the general public.

• [Taiwan Beer]

  Excellent point jonathan_v. Of course real and capable ‘terrorists’ would simply find an alternative alias. Maybe the whole point of these pointless searches isn’t to actually catch any terrorists, but to change Americans such that they think this kind of interference in their personal freedoms by the federal authorities is normal and justified. Then, the NEXT step will be easier to do!

[Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

Monkeyboy, both your estimate and mine postdate Kip Hawley’s statement that the list has been cut in half. I expect he had his fingers crossed again.

[Anonymous]

TSA=Thousands Standing Around

[Tom Neff]

I had sat down to finish my sleep-interrupted posting from yesterday, but I notice that the “moderator” has draped a full set of pseudopods, so I’ll wait till tomorrow after my (surprise!) airline flight.

[Kevin Hall]

@MADDY: “This all the language we have available at this time.” is one of the best things I’ve ever read. Apparently the TSA has such a limited vocabulary they could not form any other sentences with which to reply. The have actually run out of language. Brilliant!

This sort of nonsense almost makes me glad that I can’t go on planes (for medical reasons).

I’d love to hear a presidential candidate openly advocate for the abolition of the TSA and Homeland Security. These are ridiculous departments that waste our tax dollars, make a mockery of actual security, and actively work to deprive us of our civil liberties.

[bonzi]

As another reader observed, US has developed twisted mentality of avoiding any responsibility at any cost. What has happened to your spirit of individuality, people!? Has it it survived only in movies and cartoons?

This no-fly list nonsense is really hard to explain. One doesn’t know which possibility is more chilling:

This is a part of conspiracy to “train” population to slowly, one by one, give up they privacy rights, and later even other, more fundamental ones

This is simply a result of sheer stupidity. Do I feel comfortable that administration so stupid controls the world’s largest nuclear arsenal?

Well, the truth probably is that the list and similar nonsense came into being as panicked, knee-jerk reaction of incompetent administration, and now the bureaucracy fed by it is too fat and too powerful to allow reason to prevail.

I used to like visiting your country. This sounds like a cliché, but I found Americans, from sophisticated New Yorkers to “rednecks” the most hospitable people I met. But now I avoid traveling over the pond.

I don’t follow your presidential campaign closely enough to know whether candidates have clear position on this mess, but this is the only opportunity you will have to make things right.

Another note: as European, where national IDs are common, I don’t find them too intrusive of dangerous for privacy. Bad government guys who want to identify and follow you will find a way without it. You are using all kinds of “ersatz” IDs already: SSN, driver’s license, passport. Standardized ID makes legitimate identification easier; lack of it doesn’t make abuse much more difficult.