Slashdot Mirror
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.
Standard buracratic process....
Make things very easy for criminals.
and
Damn near impossible for law abiding citizens.
See software copy protection, crippled cd's etc
least not forget MPAA, RIAA DMCA suck
Well, yes. After implementing any system, you review after a period of time, and correct mistakes/problems.
Very, very few (if any) are the complex systems put into place with zero bugs. That doesn't automatically mean they shouldn't be tried in the first place. Maybe, maybe not. But that is an entirely different question.
Obviously the security people at airports are trained and no doubt encouraged by a litany of inflexible rules and consequences for those that don't follow them to the letter to simply "go by the book." What we wind up with is the mindless application of bureaucratic procedures by security drones. You couldn't convince me that we are all safer because of this.
It's not that politicians should receive special treatment; but it is ridiculous that one of the most recognizable men in American politics gets flagged by the computer and no one can do anything about it because no one dare stick his neck out for fear of being "flagged" for termination from his job.
On second thought though, with all the bullshit the average person has to put up with in every aspect of life that involves dealing with government agencies and their rules -- at least some of which I'm sure Senator Kennedy is responsible for -- I say hooray for inconveniencing the senator! Let's have more of this!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
No, that not true. Counter personel will always check ths list and follow the rules, and act based on those rules no matter who is in front of them. If a ticket agent ignored the list and the rules and let someone on the airplane, they would be roasted.
Security personel are always drilled that you follow procedure no matter who is standing in fornt of you. If you don't follow procedure, if you act based on their own initiative, then you take all responsibility for your actions. If you follow the rules, no matter what those rules tell you to do, then the responsibility for what happens falls on those who wrote the rules and made the list. The agent is not responsible.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Vote.
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
How about:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
- Ben Franklin
- or -
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
- Martin Niemöller
Hm, sounds like something that they implemented back in the 1930s in Germany. I don't recall how exactly that separation tactic worked. I'm sure no one was hurt by it, only delayed in their travels.
There is no bug here. It's broken by design.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
I love slashdot. Where else would you find wild anti-republican conspiracy theories considered insightful? Ohh... wait...
The whole situation in this country is just getting rediculous. Is it possible for people to believe that George W. Bush is a terrible politician, but a decent guy who just has a difference of opinion with you? I'm so sick of republicans acting as if they represent all of what's right and good in this country and claiming that the democrats represent immorality and stupidity. I'm also tired of the democrats acting as if all the republicans are either slaves to the corporate interests, and either evil crooks or else slobbering boobs who've been convinced to go along with the crooks. Jesus Christ ! Is it that unlikely that we just have differences of opinion? Is is that hard to beleive that Bush isn't trying to gather more power for himself for evil purposes - that he's just trying to keep us safe?
You can bitch all you want about Bush having said that he'd be a uniter and not a divider. Personally I think that's a stupid thing to say, but it's definately not as if Bush is intentionally trying piss off half the country. He's been being attacked since before he got into the office, with liberals saying he looked like a monkey, that he was stupid and talked funny and a religious zealot and incompetent. Are you at all surprised that this country is very divided, when half the people think their president is defeding them from evil, and the other half thinks the president looks/talks like a monkey?
I understand completely if you disagree with the president's policies, and you'd like to voice your opinion. I think there are plenty of valid disagreements you could make with the bush administration. The problem is that all I seem to hear is : "Ohhh that Bush - He's just evil! We invaded an innocent country all for oil and haliburton, after he stole the election in florida. And have you heard how talks all goofy?"
I can take criticism of the president - it's important and needs to be done. But not when the main critisim is that he's :
1) evil
2) incompetent
3) looks/talks like a monkey
If I beleived half of the critcisms being made of Bush, I'd be calling for armed revolution. The problem is that most of them just don't hold water at all. So he lied to us about iraq having WMD? What about the governments of Russia, Germany, Britain, even France coming to similiar conclusions about WMD? Why is it that Bush is called a Liar when John Kerry and Hillary Clinton came to the same conclusion that Bush did, re WMD. Why the hell would you go into a country based on a total lie? That doesn't do anything at all to help him. You'd have to beleive (which i'm under the impression that a lot of liberals do these days) that bush has the intelligence of a four-year old and about as much morality as Adolf Hitler.
Can we please raise the level of political discourse in this country? I would love to argue about the military efficacy of invading Iraq. I'd love to debate the merits of McCain Fiengold. I'd love to talk about social security and whether it can or should be exteneded and fixed. It looks like all i've got to look at this election year is a man who is an evil, stupid, incompetent ape, or a man who was apparently in vietnam thirty years ago where, depending different sides of the story, was either a hero or a shmuck. Do you honestly think that if Kerry gets elected, this country will be 'unified' again? You're going to hear all sorts of outrages charges against him, too. Just you wait...
My blog
Oh, I agree. How his name got there, and why it took so long for a prominent figure to get off is pretty damn bad. You and I would stand little chance.
Ok...here's a proposal. Every time we read about this stuff (checking ID's, No-Fly list, whatever) it's immediately bashed as unworkable, and an affront to our rights. And that may well be so.
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 ("Don't be so mean to them and cause them to blow stuff up"). This is supposedly a smart group. Let's try to fix the process, instead of jumping up and down, screaming.
The hell? All that happens is that Andy Anthrax finds out that he's on the list? So the next time he books a ticket, it will be as Barry Boxcutter.
Has anyone in the Department of Homeland 'Security' considered that this scheme is only going to stop innocent people who don't happen to have multiple identities? If we had any confidence in this list, then Senator Kennedy should have found armed agents waiting to take him down the moment he entered the airport. That this didn't happen just highlights that the whole no-fly list is a bad joke that's got way out of hand.
We need real security, not window dressing. And no, answering "National Security" in response to any criticism of the policy is not a substitute.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Damn it, why is it I only have mod points when we're discussing Star Wars and Babylon 5?
/. readers. There is a xenophobic tendency in this country that is spiraling dangerously out of control. We are drawing lines between American Citizens and Foreigners (I capitalize this as it is rapidly becoming synonymous with "Gaijen" or "Barbarian"). Lest we forget, the overwhelming majority of American Citizens are decedents of immigrants.
.... help help I'm being repressed!"
These points are well taken and should be observed by all
As is penned in the Declaration of Independence "All Men are Created Equal." Moreover, as you point out, the Constitution grants only a very few and very specific rights to US citizens. I think voting is just about it. Freedom of speech, assembly, equal protection, all of these are guaranteed to any human being within the borders of the United States.
Yes, the Supreme Court has upheld the right of the President to suspend some of these rights in time of war. Unfortunately for Herr Bush, we are not at war. "What's this" you say? Not at war? What about the War on Terror? The Court has (thus far) only upheld these suspensions when the country is in a state of declared war. Bush has attempted to circumvent the Court's wrath by denying his victims the right to see a lawyer or even appear in court. Fills you with warm fuzzies doesn't it?
Enemy combatant or not, if you're being held by the United States you have the right to an attorney and your day in court. When Congress declares war and we are legally in such a state, then and only then might the rules change. Until then "we're living in a dictatorship, a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working
classes....
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Because in fact the 9-11 hijackers were already on various watch lists, which, had they been operated properly, combined with proper ID, might have prevented them from boarding the aircraft. It's ALWAYS going to be a good thing to know who someone really is from a security point of view.
it's a very good thing this is happening to those in power, especially someone as powerful as Senator Kennedy.
Only when idiot laws begin to affect those in power will something usually be done to correct it.
Maybe the Honorable Senator and John Gilmore can get together and work to getting TSA to be an organization that doesn't resemble authority from a Charlie Chaplin movie.