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.
Maybe they need to re-evaluate themselves and their standards...(DUH!!!!).
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
But what are ordinary citizens supposed to do if the Secretary of Homeland Security won't take their calls?
Umm....get a DAMN good start driving?
Join the TWIT army now!
Is it me? Or does it seem that potential threats have and easier time getting into airports and on board planes than ordinary citizens do?
Everybody knows Ted Kennedy is no threat unless you're driving in a car with him.....
Could this have been some backroom shenanigans to harass and intimidate an outspoken member of the opposition party? Lord, no, such a thing would never be done by politicians these days...
It goes to show that once you head down this road, it is abused, or at best, applied incompetently and inflexibly. Show me your papers, citizen!
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
It's possible it wasn't that they thought he's a terrorist. Maybe they weighed him and decided they didn't have enough fuel.
He was supposed to be on the No-Drive List.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Nixon used the IRS to pester his foes. Now we've (er, they've) got the TSA to play with. It's lovely to see the advances that government has made.
Given the record of deaths in the Kennedy family, Tom Ridge was probably protecting Ted from himself.
It appears the good ole' US government is soon going to require us to carry 'airline licenses', just like drivers licenses ... maybe that would keep them from making incompetent mistakes like this!
Funny how a democratic senator is blacklisted after speaking at the DNC. Coincidence?
Kennedy used this as an opportunity to show how this system is sort of a lousy idea, and an even worse implementation.
So to this, all I can say is that Ted should be modded up at least +3 Insightful
Vonal Declosion
Don't recall the radio program but late in the day the word was that he wasn't on a No-Fly list but rather a Screen list. What the exact difference is between the list was not discussed, but I'd have to imagine that the first prohibits flight while the second is more of a harassment.
A Liberal Democrat Senator gets put on the No-Fly list by mistake _AND_ It takes 3 weeks to get removed?
Ashcroft: Hey Tommy, can you do me a favor?
Ridge: What can I do for you Ash?
Ashcroft: Ted Kennedy grabbed my parking spot in the parking lot at Justice. Anything you can do so I can get back at him?
Ridge: I've got a GREAT idea!!!
>> Practice Safe Hex
I was watching that show Airline that follows around SW Airlines employees and they wouldn't let a couple fly becasue they had too much to drink. Could that be the REAL reason Kennedy wasn't allowed to fly?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
The last time Ted Kennedy went to the beach, a group from Greenpeace showed up, tied a rope around his feet, and used a boat to try and haul him back into the water....
How does this make us open to hijackings? The terrorists from 9/11 had valid credentials. They went through a metal detector. The added security does nothing but placate the sheeple. Try flying sometime and you'll see how security is spotty at best. You don't have this kind of trouble in foreign airports that are BIGGER targets for this sort of thing. Think about that.
- gtaluvit (prnc. GOT-tuh-LUV-it)
I'd bet the majority of Americans would not recognize Ted Kennedy. And even if the counter employees recognized him, I doubt they would deviate from their normal procedure.
If it were an ordinary citizen, we would just get the run around.
Everytime I fly I am on the Screen list. It's annoying and intrusive and pisses me off, but I've never had a gate agent actually tell me about it, and it's never made me almost miss a flight.
With the screen list, they put several big S's on your boarding pass, and then you get shunted into the "extra-thorough" screening line going in. You'll recognize it next time you fly: it's extra long, extra slow, and it's where all the people with dark skin or funny clothes go.
What was described in the article is nothing like the screening I've seen. I've never had an airline worker tell me I can't fly, in fact they never mention it. I wouldn't have realized the significance of the S if it didn't happen every time I fly.
or we learn to live with some inconvenience
You're kidding right?
This guy is a U.S. Senator. Not just that, but probably one of the most well-known senators (love him or hate him). This goes way beyond a little quirk in the system.
I highly doubt that the next attack is going to be the same as the last one, we need to focus on the unidentified threats, but instead we focus on implementing systems that get us used to losing our rights. Fuck it, the 9/11 terrorists actually accomplished their goal by fundamentally changing the way we think and act!
And when I speak of a system, I mean the end-to-end system, not the computer system.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Sounds like Ted was staging a publicity stunt to me.
Yeah, my guess is that he called in a favor, got himself put on the no-fly list. Then, when they were going to let him fly anyway, he probably, insisted that he was doing his civic duty to not let himself fly, since he knew he was on the list.
JWall: GUI client for IPTables
My point is that I was marginally inconvenienced, but it was not the end of the world. It cost me maybe 10 minutes of my life. How much of this is that Ted Kennedy doesn't like being treated like the masses?
BTW, my name is as WASP as it gets.
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.
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.
Our Airline security system would be highly endangered if passengers were trusted because they were recognized as a senator. There are people who look almost identical to ted kennedy, I'm sure, who could also get fake licenses. They are following procedure, because if they do make an exception they will probably be fired.
This sig is o Unfunny o Funny
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.
And it's unlikely that a clerk at an airline counter is going to check some list of banned passengers when a Senator that (s)he recognizes stops at the counter in front of her. She'll issue the ticket without a second thought, unless she were a complete imbecile.
Not if it meant she'd lose her job. I don't know about the airlines, but the security training I've undergone has always stipulated that you always check IDs and you don't let someone through whose name is on a "do-not-pass" list just because you happen to recognize them. That would defeat the whole point of "do-not-pass" list, since then all a terrorist cell would have to do is get someone hired onto the airline staff.
Don't get me wrong, I think the do-not-fly list is a stupid idea and a gross invasion of privacy. But blame the people who came up with it, not the people who'd be out of work if they didn't carry it out.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
thats assuming that the measures protect us from hijacking. But ted is just grandstanding he actually did fly every time and it was not his name on the list but a simular name. and its not the tech that is the problem her , why would a booking clerk or sercurity person not have enough sense to look at Ted and say ok he is the senior pol from Mass let him pass
men will do for beer
But.... doing that would hinder the airline's god-given-right to maximize their profit. Isn't that unconstitutional? Much better to treat everyone as a criminal... that's what the record companies do and it works wonders for them.
</sarcasm>
Doh! And here I thought I would get to read a juicy story about some aging senator who likes to get rip-roaring drunk on flights and pinch the stewerdesses' rears. Ends up being yet another story about how American "terrorist" paranoia knows no bounds.
On a somewhat related note, it took my girlfriend and I about 2 hours to cross into the States in late June. we were "pulled" aside - told to turn off our cell phones, remove all valuables from her car (but no camera's or recorders please!) and go into a building while they searched her car. After sitting there about an hour, a person who I assumed was the supervisor came over to us and said "Why are YOU here?" (being the only caucasian couple in "waiting"). We showed him the slip of paper they had given us - he wrinkled his nose, peered at us, went "hmmmmm" and handed the slip to a INS agent and went on his way. We were then very rudely "interviewed" by said agent. Even though my girlfriend drives a very nice 2000 model Grand Am - they wanted to know how much money we had on us - when I told them none, as we intended to use americna funds we would get from bank machines, they demanded to know how much money we had on our credit cards and in our bank accounts! Were they stupid enough to think we would leave the relative freedom of Canada to sneak into the States? Give me a break. I am happy to say that after that, our trip down to St. Louis and back was wonderful.
Oddly enough coming home, we got waved through Canadian Customs in about 30 seconds.
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
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."
They didn't let him on the plane because he was a suspected terrorist, but there's no indication that they tried to detain or arrest him either. WTF?
"Ted Kennedy. Great senator, but a bad date."
Random? How about you go to the root of the problem? Start with "Tom Ridge", and see how long things stay the way they are. Mind you, "Edward Kennedy" was probably a good first choice for getting some noisy hell raised about the situation.
Incidentally, I thought I heard back in high school American government class that it was massively illegal to interfere with a member of Congress on their way to or from the House/Senate floor? Anyone?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
because his Karma on slashdot is a heavy issue on his mind.
Sounds like Ted was staging a publicity stunt to me.
WHAT THE FUCK!!?
Seriously, where the hell do people get ideas like this. Obviouslyhe set himself up as a publicity stunt......oh wait.....HE HAS NO CONTROL OVER THIS LIST. Yep, you're just another one of those fools who for some reason don't want to believe that the current administraion could EVER mess up even when there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Maybe you've had your head in the ground since 9/11 but this country has routinely been harassing and banning people from air travel based on the flimsiest correlation (it's not even real "evidence") with some list of characteristics that MIGHT make them a terrorist.
It's stupid, and un-american and it's only matter of time untill they harassed someone important.
Life is too short to proofread.
The next pasture is always greener
If there's something strange, in your neighbourhood - who're you gonna call?
Ghostbusters, of course!
Simpy
And how many people wrongly on the list can call Tom Ridge? If it took Senator Kennedy several weeks, how long would it take me or you? Thank you to the government for keeping us "safe" by taking away our Civil Liberties. Bastards.
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.
Ted's a nickname...
Washington Post states the actual [bad] entry in the system was "T. Kennedy" that trigger this whole event.
Scenario: When you goto the airport, they look at your drivers license and it says "Richard Bruce Cheney" (or Richard B. Cheney). I'm sure you will not be flagged against "D. Cheney" if it shows up in the database, otherwise all we need is a J. Smith to be entered in the database and viola, system overload... Anyway that's where profiling comes in to place I guess to prevent that ;)
Sounds like human error or poor judgement (or good judgement, depending on political party preference) but obviously blamed on a computer/database.
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.
be on a No-Drive List?
He seems much more dangerous there than flying (unless, of course, it is a small plane where he exceeds the weight limit.)
And I won't even go into the possibility of a No-Vote List for Senators...
--Qtone
Still not French
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!
It's just you. Seriously, one guy has problems because he ends up on the watch list on a prank or a fuck up and everyone starts whining that America is a police state and how their civil liberties have been taken away.
You really think it's just one guy, or even just a few? You are willfully ignorant then. This kind of shit has been going on since 9/11, and it has only gotten worse.
Screw justice, though, right? We have terrrists to catch!
Is that you? Nixon used every power at his disposal, from the FBI to the IRS to the CIA, in order to intimidate and even imprison his enemies. Look at what he did to Tim Leary: got him sentence to over 10 years in a federal prison for having, IIRC, less than two grams of marijuana in his car.
There were plenty of *allegations* made about Clinton and the IRS, but like 99.9% of the allegations made about him they turned out to be Dudge fodder and usually outright lies.
I fly quite a bit for work and know that for a time I made some sort of list somewhere. Apparently after a while, if you pass enough of their tests you are removed from the list.
The e-ticket machines would not issue me tickets, telling me that I had to get my tickets at the counter. I was no longer asked if I wanted to upgrade to first class for special price... The boarding agents stuck little colored dots with initials on them on my boarding passes - apparently as cues to people down-stream. It got frustrating that everywhere I went I and my luggage were singled out for special attention. Up to the point where my luggage would not be accepted curbside, My luggage and I would be taken into a little room and searched. In one case, even sealed packages were opened. As I boarded the airplane, I was always one of the passengers called for a random search.
Durring one of these searches, I mentioned to the agent that I must have made someone's list somewhere. He shook his head up and down as he said "I can't say that sir!" I had my answer and just resigned myself to being watched.
Then one day, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. My guess is that I satisfied the intellegence built into the database that I was not a threat and it removed me from the list.
I do not know what I did to make their list nor do I really know what I did to get off of their list. I can tell you it is an unpleasant experience being there.
As far as I know, I have never done anything anywhere that would cause someone to think of me as a potential terrorist.
For the safety of everyone else, they meant to put him on the no DRIVE list. It was an honest mistake.
My point is that I was marginally inconvenienced, but it was not the end of the world. It cost me maybe 10 minutes of my life. How much of this is that Ted Kennedy doesn't like being treated like the masses?
Perhaps some. But perhaps some of it is that he has been made aware of how people are being treated, and doesn't like it. I don't either. Are you old enough to remember the Cold War at its height? It was the same kind of crap: band-aid measures typically undertaken out of a knee-jerk reaction to some scare, real or imagined, and it winds up doing little if any good. "Duck and cover", anyone?
Same thing here. America has gone batshit crazy over terrorism, and needs to settle down. Bringing attention to crap like this is good for us all.
So I'm thinking to myself "who's on the list with a name like Ted Kennedy?" Then it hits me: Ted Kacynski.
My handle breaks slashcode, what does your handle do?
THere are 2 issues wth your reasoning (don't know if it was meant to be cynical and just repeating how some people in government seem to think..)
1. The constitution and bill of rights may define some rights for US citizens, but are based on the idea that many such rights are not given by that bill or the constitution but confirmed. Those rights exist due to being human, not because the constitution or bull of rights grants them. Due process is one of those.
2. The USA is a party to the international declaration of human rights. Due process is a part of that as well, and sicne this is an international treaty, it should be considered 'law ' accourding to the USA constitution.
So, it does not matter at all if he was a foreigner or not.
The fact that your government seems to argue along the lines that you presented however is the exact reason why I am not visiting the USA, and haven't visited it ever since that government started with this kind of talk.
Though it is the most frustrating thing to have happen to you. You entire privacy is completely violated and the process solves absolutely no problems.
The second time it happened to me in the Reno, Nevada airport (which is a freakin horrible airport) they lost my laptop and a $250 watch. How the hell do you do that?
1;
before I go flying in the USA, I think I'll change my name to "Tom Ridge", so I won't get hassled...
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
So, if I were a terrorist, I think I'd start using "Tom Ridge" as pseudonym. Then I'd laugh my ass off when the head of Homeland Security can't get on a plane, and they won't tell him why. :)
Or I wonder if they've got an "immunity" list, so that even if there WAS a terrorist going around as Tom Ridge, the name would never be put on the list. That would be just as good!
Ender-
Nothing to see here
After all this brouhaha, "Edward Kennedy" should be a pretty good choice of alias for a would-be terrorist hijacker to use, since that name has surely been removed from the No-Fly list.
Reminds me of a funny think my friend Nisa told me (She's from Shri Lanka):
No matter how late you are for a plane, if you have dark skin, never EVER run through an international airport.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
If a would-be terrorist/extremist wants to hassle the neocons, that person would just use the names of the lesser known ones as a fake identity and voilà - you'd have angry undersecretaries on airports!
(Yes I'm a bit childish today - it's Friday for God's sake)
Stop the brainwash
They went through a metal detector.
Here's the really obscene part, which comes from the 9/11 commission reports: in every flight, at least one (and in one case all four) of the highjackers on the flights set off the metal detectors. They were screened by security afterwards, and allowed to pass. We even have it on video. The sad truth from what happened on 9/11 is that we did't really need more security-we needed to make the security we already had functional. Of course, this is the country that passes new gun laws instead of enforcing the ones it already has, so why break with tradition?
In addition to this don't neglect the financial impact (the terrorists leaders don't).
A cryptic cell phone call and a correlating notebook with maps and jibberish left in a rental car could shut down major institutions.
If they can get one guy to blow himself up in an airpport with explosives up his bum, it will be cavity searches for Aunt Betty from Phoenix next.
Our best security is to keep our heads up and go about our business. Marshal law is not the answer.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
When I take my bicycle with me on the plane (in Europe), I am wearing:
- Glasses with a metal frame;
- One home key and one cycle key hidden under my clothes;
- One metal watch with a metal strap;
- Two pieces of steel sized 6x15x20 mm, one under each shoe, that fit into the pedals of my bike.
Guess what? All this does not set off the metal detection ports. In my hand luggage, there are often a number of things that must look funny on the X-ray screen: a metal cooking vessel, the pedals (full of springs and oddly-shaped pieces of steel), wires (for recharging batteries from the dynamo), lumps of cheese and chocolate (must look like lumps of semtex), a spoon, fork, and (blunt) knive that I forgot to put into the check-in luggage, and other small things that you need in outdoor life. I've never been asked to show what's inside of that bag. I'm actually considering to cut a few layers of tinfoil into the shape of a gun or knive, just to see what happens.The laser service engineer that visits our lab every now and then carries a big case with screwdrivers and other tools as well as cleaning chemicals and a gas-operated soldering iron, and he claims that he managed to carry those as hand luggage on occasions where he was in a hurry. (He is of course a very good airline customer with a pass for unlimited domestic travel).
included a funny little exchange between a woman whose daughter was being prevented from boarding planes and Asa Hutchinson, TSA honcho (and, interestingly, one of the House GOP engineers of the Clinton impeachment). The gist of the story being that after repeated attempts to get her daugher off "the list," she was still on the list. Hutchinson suggested she talk to the TSA ombudsman, which she had evidently already done.
f Id=38597 56
There were a few other interesting, chilling tidbits regarding homeland security. Fun stuff:
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?w
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
He didn't say everyone in the line was non-white, but that most non-whites go through the list. I have to agree with him. I'm white and I've been through the extra-security rubbish (at LAX a few times), and it sucks. There definitely is racial profiling going on, which is just freakin' stupid, and illegal in the US. But then it's part of the war on terror, so most people forgive it.
...is why a no-fly list even exists. I don't mean the list where you get pulled aside for extra scrutiny, but the one where they simply will not let you on the plane.
I'm not aware of anything in particular happening to these people, other than not being allowed to board. And I just don't understand the point of that. If the government considers you too dangerous to be allowed on a plane, then they ought to arrest you, charge you with some terror-related crime, and let a court determine your innocence or guilt.
Freedom to travel is a long-acknowledged right. If the government can't muster enough evidence on you to justify their actions against you, then they shouldn't be able to interfere with that right.
The added security does nothing but placate the sheeple.
Amen. Also, no matter what the government mandates to try to make people feel safe, it all comes down to Mr. John Q. Agent working at the airport to actually make it work. And he often fails.
I can give several examples of (post-9/11) experiences in an airport where I used to live (Missoula, Montana). I once boarded a plane with nobody at the gate to check passes (I still have the complete, unchecked boarding pass). I've walked right into almost every "restricted" area, including the machine room in the basement, the offices behind the airline counters, and even right out the back door to where the planes are.
My only comfort was knowing the strategic choices of planes on 9/11 was related to their high fuel content and proximity to specific targets. By the time any plane from Montana gets to a terrorist target, it's time to re-fuel.
http://publicvoidlife.blogspot.com
My favorite thing at the airport is the sign that tells you what you can't bring on and it has a very cartoon looking bomb on it. That should definetly keep Wiley E. Coyote off of the plane.
SIGFAULT
I don't think the fact that he was put on the list was politically motivated - but I am wondering why it took three weeks to make the news...
Did he decide that he wouldn't tell anyone until the issue was resolved? Did the people in the airport not realize it was Ted? I'd have told everyone I know, and an airport usually has enought people in it that SOMEONE would have let a newspaper or TV station know... It happened FIVE times...
Further, wouldn't this have made a more favorable impact for the D's if the news came out during the DNC? Maybe they wanted to wait until people forgot about the DNC and started thinking about the RNC...
Or maybe it never really happened...
</tinfoil>
-bs
That that is is not that that is not. That that is not is not that that is.
Its funny that if you truely say you are a Muslim and knows the difference between yourself and an Islamist, I would have to question the "troll factor" of your post. Quite frankly, most of those who are labelled "islamists" today are freedom fighters. Sure, there are terrorists who attack our country but those are the same people lumped into those who truely want their freedom like the Palestinians and Chechans. Remember, Geroge Washington and his "goons" were called terrorists more than 200 years ago.
"Ok...here's a proposal. [
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. ;-)
You should check out what snopes has to say about the dry run. Seriously. The air marshals were at least as concerned about the behavior of the woman who wrote that article as they were about the musicians, maybe more. If you don't want to put faith in the snopes article, read thier sources. If you don't want to put faith in their sources, I can't help you.
For people nervous about links: http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/skyterror.asp
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
... looking for 'Haddi Ou-ard Quani-di'
Please have your papers ready.
This will be another 'reason' to move towards tagging people, or doing DNA tracking on *all* citizens: "We have to be sure its you, as we all know documents can be faked"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Wow. So all terrorists need to do is start using legislator's names as aliases. In no time, Congress will collapse (or laws will be changed).
I'm only half joking, you know.
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.
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.
Oh, I'm caucasian too. My wife, however, is not. And we've definitely noticed that while I'm not the only white guy in the screening line, there aren't many of us.
I think they meant to put him on the no-drive list.
Let's just say that even though I think the circumstances are highly suspect, I still doubt republicans would go that far.
If they really did that on purpose, I'm sure it's several felony counts, one per every voter removed that wasn't supposed to.
Too bad we will never find out, since nobody, but the "unpatriotic" are interested in reporting or hearing about it.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
The difference between George Washington and the crazy Islamists today is that G. Washington didn't have his friends in other countries blowing up buildings and killing innocent people far from the fighting. I don't rememember Thomas Jefferson saying it was ok to take the war to the civilians back in Britan or France or kidnap Britsh merchants and cut thier heads off as a 'message to others.'
You cannot make this comparison logically. The war we are fighing now is against people who are obsessed with destroying our way of life. It is not a war for 'independence' or 'freedom.'
By the way, the last thing the Palistinians want is peace. Their entire political and social system is built on hate for the Israelis the and goal of destruction of the State of Israel.
There is something truely perverse about sending your children out to blow themselves up.
Good try, but nothing about this is like George Wahshington and his 'goons'.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that Kennedy's name ended up on that list as a form of political protest?
I should probably shut up now...
freedoms are lost in incremements. this is one. Props to John Gilmore for fighting a worthy fight. What I'm scared of is flying through your soon-to-be police state of america, and getting stopped/detained on the way through because I'm on some vague, secret list. American customs officials scare me. I've been through US airports many times, and I always have had negative experiences. Apparently, walking up to customs with your girlfriend and handing over 2 passports is too much for them. We handed over our passports, open, showing our photos, and they guy looks at us like we're idiots and says, gruffly, "which is YOUR passport?". I cut short some smart-ass reply due to my own personal fear of having my ass invaded by a latex covered glove....
People: does anyone really, REALLY believe that a senator of the United States couldn't get Homeland Security to listen to him?
Kennedy is Enemy Number One with conservatives, and believe me, Homeland (Fatherland? GOD!) Security's political employees are damn near 100 poicent Bush supporters. Remember, HS has no civil service protection -- it's a patronage army.
Come on, you really think Kennedy's pleas were ignored in the normal course of business? "Conspiracy theory" my tired skinny ass, the honchos who now control our access to air travel are screwing with Bush's political enemies. Kennedy isn't the first one to find himself on the list. And the list is secret, you can't appeal, and no one cares anyway. It's the work of a second for a political shark to tap in a partial string into the database to mess up your life.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
You think that your St. George is any less likely than Nixon to abuse the power of the Presidency? I'll give you three guesses who Bush Sr's political mentor and patron was. Here's a hint: he came from Yorba Linda and had a dog named Checkers.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
This is great. Just as stupid as this forms you have to fill in on the plane when coming from europe and you're not an US citizen.
There are actual questions in the form of "Are you a terrorist?". Yeah, sure, if i were a terrorist i'd check the "Yes" box? And i would check in with my real name at the airport?
Dear security guys: How stupid do you think your average terrorist is?
Look, this thing is totally safe! Built it myself, you know. You just press that button like this and then turn that lev
See: www.gregpalast.com
Whatever your political views, this is clearly something that should NOT HAPPEN in America. The fact that it does should greatly concern anyone who believes in American ideals. This country was founded on some fundamental beliefs. For example, that you are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. That citizens have the right to life, LIBERTY and pursuit of happiness. How does a "no-fly" list support these American axioms?
Be afraid, comrades, be very afraid. I for one, greatly fear our new overlords.
..he was never actually prohibited from flying. His name was flagged. The counter clerk bumped it up to the next level. That person checked him out, found he was not the person they are looking for, and cleared him to get on the plane.
Yes, it took 3 weeks to get his name off the list, but during that time, he was still flying.
For an analogy, let's presume there is a warrant out for a person that goes by the name MysticalFruit. No address, no other info. All they have is the name. Should you get stopped by the police (running a stop sign, maybe), should the police officer check you out a little further, to determine if you are that MysticalFruit named in the waarrant? Or should he just blow it off?
Because this particular T. Kennedy is not the person they are looking for does not mean that there isn't a T. Kennedy that they ARE looking for.
You can't win... just the other day was a slashdot story about NOT having to present ID in order to travel...
Are you suggesting that people should not complain when the system which has been imposed upon America (and quite frankly the world) by this administration, without any public consultation, and with implied threats against other nations which dont get on side, and in contradiction with historic American values of liberty and freedom, don't function as advertised?
The root of the complaint is that this administration is causing disruptions in people's lives, without accomplishing the stated objective (beneficial or otherwise). i.e. America is not safer. It is absolutely impossible to secure every single mile of road, every train track, every building, every hospital, every boat, every mail parcel, every nook and crany inside or outside of America. And as long as Al Qaeda or islamic fundamentalists still exist, there will be unsecured targets to attack.
Unless you consider the fact that you can be detained for having initials which match those on some terrorist list to be a form of "safe". This process is misdirected. It is a huge waste of resources to detain the WRONG PEOPLE.
Americans used to think of freedom as a right, and a threat to that freedom as a form of danger.
People, you can't have your cake and eat it, too. I personally don't think showing ID to travel on a plane is that bad.
What about traveling on a train?
What about walking on a public road, or visiting a doctor?
What about being present in a public place?
What about being present in a private place?
What if your ID had been deleted from the database?
You don't think it is bad because you dont think you have a RIGHT privacy, and you don't appreciate that in this information age, privacy is just as much a necessary protection against tyranny as the right to bare arms.
The right to bare arms is actually meaningless without privacy. You can't possibly win a war, when the enemy knows everything about you. Once privacy is abolished, then the environment is ripe for a tyranny to empower itself. A tyranny, supported by information technology the likes the world has never seen before.
Comparing it with the former Soviet Union is a joke... you don't get stopped on every road at every state border with people asing for "papers, please".
But then again, the Soviet Union was communist.
You don't get stopped at every road at every state border with people asking for papers *YET*.
Wait for it.
But this administration has reserved such authority for itself. Not to mention complete and absolute surveilance over all communications.
Imagine what will happen, the next time the terrorists make a strike against America. It will be lock down time.
Thats what they do in prisons. Every hour or so.. everything locks down, including guards, nobody can leave their section, and everyone reports a body count in their sections. So if a single person is missing, it will be detected before the escaped inmate can get to far.
However in america's future, the number of people in jail or on parole will increase from 6 million, to over 300 million. Everyone will be on parole.
Afterall... aren't we all born in sin? There is all the moral justification you need to put everyone on parole from day 1.
That is America's future, if America keeps going down this path of fear.
Would you like a Department of Home Security Officer to visit your house each day to make sure you haven't moved or left with ciy without reporting in?
Perhaps, a friendly high speed internet video phone call, secured by longhorn. It would only take 30 seconds of you and your families time each day. A small price to pay for freedom.
Of course, "terrorists" need not check in.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
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.
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.
--
make install -not war
I know I'm going to get modded down for this, but it's worth it.
I'm sick of all the outright lies about the war in Iraq coming from the anti-war left. It's disgusting. Saddam Hussein was not a nice guy. Iraq was not Disneyland before the war. It was a totalitarian hellhole in which people were getting killed by the thousands. Talk to an Iraqi sometime. They will tell you stories about how on their sister's wedding night a drunk Uday Hussein showed up and decided to rape her death and slit the throat of the groom. These weren't isolated incidents, they happened every day.
Only 6,000 have been "wounded" and only a fraction of those are serious wounds. Saying that 10,000+ were "mangled" is an outright lie. Let's take the highest number of wartime civilian casualties in Iraq: right around 12,000. Let's take the lowest figure for the number of Iraqis killed each year by Saddam Hussein: 24,000. That's at least 12,000 lives saved in Iraq, and that figure is likely too low by at least half. If you're going to talk about the morality of war, don't gloss over the costs of inaction. Nice ad hominem attack, but have you ever considered that maybe MI6 has better intelligence than we do and believed that Hussein was a threat. Have you ever tried reading the Butler Report that said that there was no evidence of politicization of British Intelligence? I'd guess no, because that would challenge your worldview. This kind of leftist cant is both prima facie ridiculous, but it crowds out legitimate criticism of the war by those who don't get their rocks off by reading Chomsky. If you're going to increase intelligent public discourse, calling someone a "poodle" for having an informed opinion that you don't like is not the way to go about it.The first question, if it took Ed Kennedy, a well known Senator, three weeks of calling around to get off the list, what chance would a regular Joe have of EVER getting off the list.
The next question, will Tom Ridge be personally calling and apologizing to everyone who is improperly placed on the list, or just those who have the pull to make things inconvieniant for DHS in future legislation?
Section. 6.
Clause 1: The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. (See Note 6) They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, beprivileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.
So, you're saying he was flying one-way for weeks?
The revolution will NOT be televised.
It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Thank you. I am an American citizen, naturalized since age 15 or so. I was also in AFROTC (very briefly). Because of this, the federal government has my fingerprints on record, a full accounting of everything I've ever done, a lengthy list of people I've known, and all the info it could ever want about me. I know this because I had to give them all of this. Despite all of this, I am pulled out of every single line in every airport I ever go through and my bags are generally searched thoroughly if not emptied entirely. Why is that? I am a short white glasses wearing female computer technician. Like one of the earlier posters, I can only imagine that I am on some list, somewhere. I've read about the mangling of the Bill of Rights currently in progress, and when I talk to my peers, all they can say is we have to support the president.
Wrongo bongo. I have to get his rear out of the white house by voting for the person who stands the greatest chance of deposing him and his imperial hawk buddies. That's what I've got to do, and that's what anyone else who has suffered because of the recent insanity needs to do. Outta there. This year.
maybe one day i'll be smart enough to come up with a cool sig, too.
The Senator was blacklisted to save the airlines money. Free booze in First Class has to have limits.
From this article on the ACLU's lawsuit: [of people on the list] "the "no-fly" list has resulted in routine stops of passengers without terrorist ties who "have no meaningful opportunity to clear their names," said the complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union... They are detained, interrogated, delayed, embarrassed, humiliated in front of other passengers."
"Plaintiff David Nelson, 34, a trial attorney in the St. Louis, Missouri, area, said he has been stopped more than 30 times -- every flight he's taken..." Its all the Nelsons everywhere, although evidently the one bad one is from Tennessee. From another article "...this week 18 men named David Nelson, all residents of Oregon, confirmed they have been repeatedly delayed at airport counters and security checkpoints in the last year or so."
I do not feel safer that all T. Kennedys or all David Nelsons are being searched. They should hire police to follow the one bad David Nelson around and save those 12,000 searches (assuming 1 trip per year) for random searches of everybody. As Bruce Schneier points out:
Bad Soundex matches don't make us more secure. Even good soundex matches aren't much better: the bad guys will just learn which names not to use. Random searches: annoying, but results in more actual safety.
Kennedy 2008 ?? A Blonde in Every Pond ?? (diving for cover)
You get used to it after a while. What I do is basically:
1) Don't carry anything valuable. They'll make you dump everything on a table, which they don't watch very well. For security staff, they're pretty slack about other people's stuff.
2) Wear cheap, flat 'deck' shoes, like $12 pairs fron a cheap show chain. You may lose them at some point.
3) If you wear a belt, use a cheap flat belt. You may have it torn open at some point.
4) Wear clean underware, with no holes. You may wind up with your pants around your ankles with 20 strangers there, as you try to stand straight, with no belt, and your arms straight out from your sides. (Happened to me at San Diego, in the hole they call Gate 1.)
Expect to be laughed at by the wanker TSA employees. Do not make any remarks or show any expression in response. Remarks about a**holes results in an extra hour or two in a small room while you wait for a cavity search 'specialist'.
Despite all of this, I am pulled out of every single line in every airport I ever go through and my bags are generally searched thoroughly if not emptied entirely. Why is that? I am a short white glasses wearing female computer technician.
There are relatively few jobs other than airport security screeners that have minimal requirements, have had to hire a ton of people extremely rapidly in a short period of time, and allow hirees to pat down choice females from a line.
May we never see th
And whatever they claim otherwise, they're still getting data from credit reports and the like. So say you're one of the hundreds of thousands of identity theft victims. With ID theft you have rights, and the credit reporting agencies responsibilities, to attempt to fix bad data. Takes 200 hours of your time and never, ever really finishes, but all you lose is your potential new job and potential new car loan.
But in the meantime the bad data gets into the gov't files: now you never can fix it. And your taint creeps out to touch all your associates (like how the casino software catches ex-roommates of ex-roommates of card counters). Now not only do you not get hired after the NCIC screen in the background check, but your buddies and grandparents all get extra airport searches (they should add a nurse they way they do some of those searches... add in a breast or testicular cancer lump screen while you're there). And of course as 1 in 2500 of us is a terrorist any close check of you will find those suspicious degrees of separation in your Orkut links. Hi Mr.Tuttle, your new name is Toast.
From my favorite precient and well-written essay on privacy losses:
If these errors were merely harmful to the innocent, that would simply be horribly injust and an affront to the ideals of the US. But these errors are also stupidly harmful to safety. From Schneier (via my D.Nelson post)... "almost everyone who fits the profile will turn out to be a false alarm. This not only wastes investigative resources that might be better spent elsewhere, but it causes grave harm to those innocents who fit the profile..."
It's ALWAYS going to be a good thing to know who someone really is from a security point of view.
Not true. In addition to impeeding ordinary travelers (thus doing damage FOR the terrorists), it's an innefective waste of resources that could otherwise be used to do something useful.
Such as random searches.
A watch list means anybody on the watch list is harrassed, and KNOWS it, while anybody NOT on the list passes through. This means that the terrorists can do a dry run and find out which of them are not on the list and pass through unhampered. Then the ones that succeed get togther and do the REAL hijacking - with no problems.
And the terrorists already knew this. They did dry runs immediately before the 9/11 event.
Had the resources been used instead for random checks, being passed through without search once would give no improvement whatsoever on the probability of being searched on the next trip. Mixes of the two are progressively less effective as the fraction of random searches goes down and watchlist searches goes up. (There was a recent paper on this published, and referenced here on slashdot.)
Meanwhile, having a watch list means having a government black list, selecting out a subset of the population for systematic penalization and harrassment. That's already unconstitutional, in the absense of individiualized evidence of wrongdoing and legal action to determine guilt, under the equal protection clause. But doubly so when it can be shown that a watchlist is not effective for its stated purpose, so no pressing government interest is served.
And of course there's the issue of harassment of additional people improperly put on the list - with T. Kennedy as the poster child.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Although a little late to posting, I had an interesting experience about 8 years ago in Northern Ireland. When crossing from the Republic to the North, I was stopped at a British army checkpoint. It was just after a medium bombing and I happened, unbeknownst to me to be driving near the bombing site. The soldier asked for my name and when I told them, all of a sudden the soldier stood up with a visible change her appearance. There was scurrying around the armored transport with soldiers now grasping their assault rifles and coming towards the car. Fortunately the next question was "where are you from?". When I said "America" things got under control quickly, with the other soldiers turning around and heading back to where they were sitting, and the soldier asking me questions was much relieved. Apparently my family name had links to the IRA with a couple of members serving time for terrorist offenses. Mind you, none of my relatives were/are involved. But because my name is a somewhat uncommon Irish name, the simple reference to the name almost caused me and my family problems. Just simply our names should not enough to cause these problems.
It is dangerous to be right on a subject on which the established authorities are wrong. - Voltaire
He's sort of the apple of their ire, then, right?
Get off my launchpad!