Senator Blacklisted by No-Fly List

sig writes "Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) was turned down for a flight from Washington, D. C. to Boston because his name turned up on the TSA No-Fly list. He eventually got on a flight, but was again denied on his way back to D.C. It took 3 weeks of calls to Tom Ridge and the Department of Homeland Security for the ordeal to get straightened out. But what are ordinary citizens supposed to do if the Secretary of Homeland Security won't take their calls?" There's also a New York Times story.

Comments

Re:Funny...

[dekemoose]

For a lot of good reading on truly effective security practices, read Bruce Schneier's stuff, http://www.schneier.com/, his crypto-gram newsletters have lots of interesting reading.

T. Kennedy

[EnglishTim]

Riiiight. So basically anybody called 'T Kennedy' isn't allowed to fly.

According to the 1990 census information, 0.067% of Americans have the surname 'Kennedy' - given a rough poulation of 300million, that makes around 200,000 American Kennedys.

Now, also from the above information, 4.25% of the male population and 3.35% of the female population have names beginning with T.

This means that just from that single name on the no-fly list, roughly 7600 Americans could be excluded from flying.

It's utter, utter madness.

Re:T. Kennedy

[EnglishTim]

> What in the heck does someone named 'T. Kennedy' have to do with this story? That isn't his name.
> Again, what does that have to do with this story? His name doesn't start with a 'T.'

FROM THE ARTICLE:
"Sen. Edward "Ted" Kennedy said Thursday that he was stopped and questioned at airports on the East Coast five times in March because his name appeared on the government's secret "no-fly" list."...

"A senior administration official, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said Kennedy was stopped because the name "T. Kennedy" has been used as an alias by someone on the list of terrorist suspects."

> Hey moderators, how about actually reading the posts before hitting the buttons.

Hey, poster! how about actually reading the article before posting?

For the non-US

[Professeur Shadoko]

I didn't get the joke, so I googled a bit:

here

On the evening of July 19, 1969, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts drove his Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, drowning his passenger, a young campaign worker named Mary Jo Kopechne. The senator left the scene of the accident, did not report it to the police for many hours, and according to some accounts considered concocting an alibi for himself in the interim.

At the time, Kennedy managed to escape severe legal and political consequences for his actions thanks to his family's connections (which helped to contain the inquest and grand jury) and to a nationally televised "Checkers"-like speech broadcast a week after the accident. But virtually no journalist who has closely examined the evidence fully believes Kennedy's story, and almost 30 years later, the tragedy still trails the senator, with aggressive press investigations revived in five-year anniversary intervals.

Probably more than any other single factor, Chappaquiddick - a frenzy without end - has ensured that Ted Kennedy would not follow his brother John to the White House.

NOT TURNED DOWN

[magarity]

It's bad enough when comment posters don't RTFA, but the submitter?!?!

From the article:
A Kennedy aide said the senator nearly missed a couple of flights because of the delays

This is NOT "turned down for a flight". Sheesh!

Making A Difference, Not Just Noise

[MooseByte]

"Ok...here's a proposal. [ ... ] How about, instead of mindlessly bashing what they are trying, coming up with something better. Something that won't take decades to bring to fruition [ ... ] Let's try to fix the process, instead of jumping up and down, screaming."

I fully agree. Another critical angle is to contact your representatives and be heard. Your phone call is actually more powerful than your vote in many ways. Your vote gets the person into/out of office, your phone calls/email/letters gives them direct feedback on specific issues.

Followup ideas on How To Do It Better to follow shortly, but I've got to knock out a conference call first. Yeah, work. The nerve of them. ;-)

Article I, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution

[Rescate]

From the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 6:

[...] They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same [...]

This clause is sometimes put forward by congressmen to try to avoid tickets, since they are "going to and returning from" their sessions. See Sen. Robert Byrd: Invoking an ancient rule to avoid a modern law to find out more.

Re:Could it have been...

[SpaceLifeForm]

Really. Now the FBI is tailing people just to harass them because of their political views. Lots of recent reports here.

And this kind of crap is not going to be buried by the media!

Re:The slippery slope

[ajs]

Ah, another bastardization of the original. Here's an interesting comment from a page about the person that made the original "when they came for..." comment:

Everbody loves to quote Martin Niemöller's lines about moral failure in the face of the Holocaust: ' First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.'

But interestingly, people use the quotation to imply different meanings - even altering it to suit their purpose. When Time magazine used the quotation, they moved the Jews to the first place and dropped both the communists and the social democrats. American Vice-President Al Gore likes the to quote the lines, but drops the trade unionists for good measure. Gore and Time also added Roman Catholics, who weren't on Niemöller's list at all. In the heavily Catholic city of Boston, Catholics were added to the quotation inscribed on its Holocaust memorial. The US Holocaust Museum drops the Communists but not the Social Democrats; other versions have added homosexuals.

presumption before thinking

[Doc Ruby]

Why presume when you can RTFA? Senator Kennedy wasn't cleared by "second level checking", or even the first 2 of 3 calls to Tom Ridge, Director of Homeland Security. You've obviously decided that the system is good, and aren't interested in having your mind changed by the facts. Sounds like you work for the Department.