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

Our gov't at work

[AviLazar]

Maybe they need to re-evaluate themselves and their standards...(DUH!!!!).

Re:Our gov't at work

[YrWrstNtmr]

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.

Re:Our gov't at work

[zoefff]

At least the security system is working VERY visible! I can imagine:

'Sorry sir, but we can't let you through'
'Do you know who I am? I AM senator Kennedy!'
'Even if you were the King of Liechtenstein, we can't let you through'
'I'll have YOU fired first thing in the morning!'
'Please do, but could you step out of the line please, sir?'

Or the old joke
'Sorry sir, but we can't let you through'
'Do you know who I am?'
(Intercom)'Can somebody help this person? He doesn't know who he is...'

Re:Our gov't at work

[jbash]

Oh yeah, I'm sure it was a bug. "Kennedy" sounds kind of Middle Eastern, don't you think? Wonder how many other Democrats will run into this kind of "mistake."

The current White House occupants are shameless. Immediately after 9-11, Prime Minister Cheney ordered Continuity of Government to go into effect. The program calls for the evacuation of government leaders from Washington and the activation of the underground hideaways that shelter bureaucrats trained to keep Uncle Sam in business. The problem was no Democrats were evacuated or kept in the loop. Must have been an oversight.

Re:Our gov't at work

[YouHaveSnail]

Well, yes. After implementing any system, you review after a period of time, and correct mistakes/problems.

Of course, but you typically do that before you put the system into production. If you can't run the implemented system in a test bed environment, then at the very least you put the system in place and instruct users not to rely on it, and you give them a quick way to report problems. Also, note that there's a big difference between mistakes made in the system and mistakes made by the system. The former may take a while to isolate and correct, but there should be a mechanism to fix the latter quickly.

Very, very few (if any) are the complex systems put into place with zero bugs.

That's no excuse. If you have to put a system in place without thorough testing, you think long and hard about the kinds of problems it can cause, and you make damn sure you've got a fast and effective means of dealing with those problems.

Re:Our gov't at work

[david.gilbert]

"Kennedy" sounds kind of Middle Eastern, don't you think?

What makes you think your name needs to sound "kind of Middle Eastern" to make it onto the "no-fly" list? Your predjudices, perhaps?

Re:Our gov't at work

[gorbachev]

There is no bug here. It's broken by design.

Re:Our gov't at work

[jbash]

What makes you think your name needs to sound "kind of Middle Eastern" to make it onto the "no-fly" list? Your predjudices, perhaps?

Good point. Maybe we should ALL change our names to Bin Laden. We know they can ALWAYS get on a plane.

Re:Our gov't at work

[MooseByte]

"Well, yes. After implementing any system, you review after a period of time, and correct mistakes/problems."

Yes, and BEFORE implementing a system like an inherently error-prone No-Fly list, even some basic design review of error recovery should have been firmly in place, beyond "there's this guy you can call and something might be done, maybe, if you're a senior gov't figure." I'd loved to have been in on the design meeting where that was finalized.

It took a senior senator 3 WEEKS to get off the list. Think you'd have ANY chance? That's broken by design. And given past abuses (Euro journalists denied entry to US due to their "mistaken" inclusion on The List) I have zero confidence in this not being used as a political tool. Tom DeLay's "missing plane w/ congressmen" false report to the FAA, for example.

And that's only the painfully obvious list. What about the ones you're never allowed to see?

Nearly every aspect of this homeland "security" as implemented appears to have come from some underperforming kindergarten class. "And colors! We'll have pretty colors for the national terrorism alert level!"

Meanwhile actual terrorists, whose plans apparently are NOT drawn up by underperforming kindergartners, will be busy trying to get one of their own put onto the equally poorly thought-out "security express" list that allows previously cleared individuals minimal security review at airports.

But that's just me talking, some guy who's never benefitted from a terrorist attack, unlike those now supposedly in charge of preventing them.

Re:Our gov't at work

[InfiniteWisdom]

"As they should"???

This system is ostensibly a way of preventing terrorist attacks, not keeping "immoral" people off airplanes.

Re:Our gov't at work

[Anonymous Coward]

According to MSNBC, "Kennedy was stopped because the name "T. Kennedy" has been used as an alias by someone on the list of terrorist suspects."

So everyone with a name of T. Kennedy is going to have trouble flying. That seems like a pretty fundamental flaw to me. You had better hope one of the suspects doesn't choose YrWrstNtmr as a alias!

Re:Our gov't at work

[jon787]

Here is another variant:

A high ranking Admiral drives up to the gate of a naval base. This base has a policy of 100% check of ID cards and there is a new Marine on guard duty at the gate.
Marine: I need to see your ID.
Admiral: I don't have time for this nonsense. (to the driver) Go ahead.
Marine: Don't do that.
Admiral to driver: You heard me, Drive on.
Marine draws his sidearm and says: Sir, this is my first time on post. Do I shoot you or your driver?

Re:Our gov't at work

[YrWrstNtmr]

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.

Re:Our gov't at work

[jedidiah]

The nature of the problem was rampant stupidity.

Anyone that's worked with security, databases or identity management should be well aware of the fact that certain key values occur in populations to the point of being meaningless. This is not simply a problem of testing but of ignoring key principles within a discipline as well as the past mistakes of others.

This situation is much more comparable Microsoft's policies regarding security.

Re:Our gov't at work

[The Conductor]

The answer is defense in depth. Screen for passengers for weapons, but realize that some will get through any realistic screening, so add layers that lengthen the odds. Investigate suspicious groups before they get to the airport. Put pressure on (or invade if you must) states that support these groups. Put on a bulletproof cockpit door to stop them if they do get on the plane; I would go further and give the cockpit an outside door, so it is inaccessible from the passenger cabin. Give the pilots (or, for that matter, properly qualified passengers) guns so they can fight back. Put remote control lockouts on the aircraft. Fit supertall buildings with anti-aircraft weapons (specially designed for short range so they don't get hijacked).

Granted, some of these things are being done, but the mindset is still one of looking for the perfect threat detection system, rather than one of minimizing risk for some given cost. We must accept that, whatever we do short of abandoning civilian aviation entirely, there will be a finite risk of hijackings. Any security measure must be judged by risk reduction vs cost, and compared to other, possibly less costly, measures to reduce risk.

Re:Our gov't at work

[Ryosen]

>>How would YOU do it, if not by using the name as the first level check?

I'd probably take my head out of my ass and familiarize myself with the world around me. It's not as if Ted Kennedy is an obscure personality. It's not as though he hasn't been one of the most prominant figures in American politics for the past 42 years. And this happened in Washington D.C. and then again in his home state? How do you excuse that level of ignorance?

The fact that it took 3 weeks for one of the most powerful politicians in this country to get cleared off of the list, while sweetly ironic, doesn't hold much hope for the rest of us regular schlubs who might also run up against the same problem. I don't know about you but I certainly can't use the excuse that I'm a U.S. Senator to get through airport security. And while it might bring a small measure of comfort to know that the TSA is not making exceptions, it still smacks of the asinine overkill that followed 9/11 when they were scanning children, searching old women and making nursing mothers drink their own breastmilk.

Of course, using a pattern of "first initial, last name" is not exactly an accurate means of finding a match for terrorists, now, is it?

Re:Our gov't at work

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Remember that Florida tried to purge Democratic-friendly voters a second time. At first, they refused to turn over a list of the names of the people purged, to prevent the tactic from being discovered until it was to late to counter. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me... won't get fooled again. They got caught working to steal the election.

It really looks like the TSA simply doesn't care whether innocent civilians are denied the ability to use the nation's airlines. The hassles in air travel now make the choice between driving six hours and buying an airplane ticket or two easy; I drive. I'm looking at a 14 hour drive in October for me and my wife. I am reluctant to try flying. What if my name is on the no-fly list?

Re:Our gov't at work

[Dashing Leech]

The point is that the system didn't work like you "presume". Yes, it worked eventually. But "working" or "not working" is not a binary choice here. The speed at which it works is critical. It took 3 weeks for a senator with connections to get his name cleared. How long would it take a normal citizen.

A better way to implement this would have been to have a test period where the travellers are notified that they're flagged but not stop them from flying. Each flag is then investigate to see if it is a false positive, and how long it took to clear false positives. Only after this trial period, and fixing the bugs, should they actually stop people from flying.

Re:Our gov't at work

[Citizen of Earth]

I'd probably take my head out of my ass and familiarize myself with the world around me. It's not as if Ted Kennedy is an obscure personality.

And if Kerry wins in November, suddenly anyone with the name "G.W. Bush" is going to have trouble flying.

Re:Our gov't at work

[JayJayEm]

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.

Re:Our gov't at work

[harrkev]

Perhaps, but I still wonder why it should be necessary...

It is not WHO you are, but what you take on the plane with you. Even if Osama himself is on the plane, what is he going to do if he cannot even get his hands on a knitting needle?

You have to make a choice: Reduce your chance of dying by 0.000000000001% vs a 100% chance of loosing some liberties.

Re:Our gov't at work

[Lord Dimwit Flathead]

...asinine overkill that followed 9/11 when they were scanning children, searching old women and making nursing mothers drink their own breastmilk

The breastmilk-drinking bit was certainly asinine and a violation of the woman's rights. However, the refusal to exempt old women and children from searches was actually a good security decision. When certain classes of people are systematically excluded from searches, a smart attacker will exploit that exclusion to carry out his attack. Even if he can't recruit an old woman or a child to his cause directly, he probably can get one to carry something through the checkpoint for him, whether knowingly or not. An effective search campaign must include random target selection, preferably in combination with targeted selection based on risk factors.

That having been said, I agree with your main point, that Senator Kennedy's troubles with the no-fly list do not bode well for the average citizen who happens to find himself so listed.

Re:Our gov't at work

[JayBat]

How would YOU do it, if not by using the name as the first level check?

I would ignore names and ID's. This approach is stupid. Trivial to fake. I am very angry that my government is wasting my money and time on this utter BS. If you really want air transport security, you:

Massively increase spending on physical search of people and baggage. 3X-5X would probably be a minimum. This means everybody, including maintenance, food service and airport staff gets screened, every time, fast.

100% air marshall coverage on commercial passenger flights with max gross over X,000 lbs. (you decide how big you want X to be...).

100% security screen on bizjet flights over X,000 lbs max gross (yes, Carly, Steve, and Larry, that means you).

This is very expensive. If you do it right, security screener and air marshall become well-paid, prestigious, sought-after jobs.

You don't do it (like the current situation), then you're just pretending you want security and (willfully or not) hoping that the bad guys and the public at large are too fscking stupid to notice.

BTW, this isn't even starting on truck/train/ship/air freight security. If you're gonna be scared about something, be scared about that.

FWIW, I don't think you should be scared about terrorist threats at all; they want you to be scared. (Figuring out who "they" are left as an exercise for the reader. Hint: there's more than one. :-)

Re:Our gov't at work

[Bearpaw]

And if Kerry wins in November, suddenly anyone with the name "G.W. Bush" is going to have trouble flying.

It wouldn't be the first time someone with the name "G. W. Bush" has had trouble flying ...

Re:Our gov't at work

[iocat]

One of the big reasons they need to know who you are before you get on a plane -- the airline, not the TSA -- is so that if it crashes, they have an accurate list of who died. This prevents notifying the wrong people, etc. It's kind of morbid, but it makes a lot of sense.

One of the reasons the TSA checks IDs everyday is so that if there's ever a time when they need to be checking IDs to make it tougher for someone to travel under a false name, they don't have to suddenly invent the procedure.

Re:Our gov't at work

[hopethishelps]

How would YOU do it, if not by using the name as the first level check?

I wouldn't do it at all. The whole concept of depriving people of the right to travel just because they are vaguely "suspected" of something stinks.

If the government wants to penalize somebody in such a major way, it should have to:

1. Tell that person what he/she is accused of
2. Give the person an opportunity to confront his/her accusers in court and rebut the evidence
3. Have a judge or jury consider the evidence in public

Most of us thought we had that right. Too many people seem willing to give it up, in return for an illusory feeling of "security". The chance of your being injured by a terrorist in the next year is considerably less than the chance of your being injured by a non-terrorist driving an automobile. There are risks in life, get used to it. Giving up essential liberties, which took centuries of struggle and sacrifice to get, just to possibly reduce some already-tiny risk, is irresponsible, short-sighted, and extremely stupid.

Re:Our gov't at work

[Obfuscant]

How do you excuse that level of ignorance?

What makes you think it was ignorance? Maybe there's somebody named Kopechne who does data entry for the list?

Re:Our gov't at work

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ALWAYS going to be a good thing to know who someone really is from a security point of view.

The problem is, Sen Kennedy's experience shows that the current system doesn't show who someone really is. Nor will that be enough.

The fact of the matter is our airport security is paranoid but without the possiblity of a solid perimeter which can be used to prevent an attack on our own response. The only thing we have to be thankful for today is that those who wish our country harm haven't figured this out or have decided that such attacks don't fit their ends well. All one really needs to do today is to create *the appearance* of a security threat to cause real damage to American business and commerce. One does *not* have to show ID to effectively do this because one can effectively do this sort of thing in lobbies, baggage claims, public restrooms, and the like. In this regard US airport security is extremely brittle.

I have traveled to many countries which have had a longer history of having to deal with security issues than the US. For example Ecuador has a multi-layer security system which effectively protects them against their threats. But their threats are simply narco-traffickers who are not aimed at causing damage to Ecuador's businesses.

But take a look at Indonesia. Not too long ago, a bomb exploded in a KFC at the airport outside their security perimeter. (Indonesia uses a system similar to that of Ecuador but does allow public areas inside the airport buildings but outside the security perimeter.) I think only two people were injured in what seemed to me to be an ad-hoc attack related to a trial of an alleged terrorist. But if such had been a coordinated attack and in the US, do you think US airspace would still be open (even if nobody was injured)?

IMO, the real solution is the development of a multi-layered security infrastructure. Yes, this includes reinforced doors in aircraft and the development of uniform security plans across airlines with regard to common threats. I think it also will eventually require an open and public discussion of the security of general infrastructure in this country as well as what is most critical to the operations of basic services and commerce. We must have confidence that we can fix flaws found before terrorists can do the necessary recon, etc. to actually carry out an attack. Analyzing the pattern of Al Qaeda attacks, I suspect that these take them *years* of planning. We should look seriously at how we can improve the speed at which we respond to weaknesses in our security infrastructure. I.e. we don't have years to impliment that new security procedure.

Finally, such security needs to be robust enough that we don't really have to worry about who is on the airplanes.

There will always be "soft targets" but we MUST work to minimize the global impact of attacks on them.

Re:Our gov't at work

[ElForesto]

If you can't run the implemented system in a test bed environment, then at the very least you put the system in place and instruct users not to rely on it, and you give them a quick way to report problems.

Tell that to the dot-com I used to work for.

Answer.

[whiteranger99x]

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?

Re:Answer.

[groot]

Umm....get a DAMN good start driving?

That won't work after the new 'Don't-Drive' rules take into effect on our nations hiways.

Mr. Kennedy (if that is really your name) please step away from the vehicle...

--laz

Re:Answer.

[dekemoose]

Do you really want Kennedy driving? Now that's a threat to the country!

Re:Answer.

[Rahga]

After a party on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969, Kennedy drove his car off a bridge, resulting in the death of one of his aides. This event has haunted his entire career, is the reason you'll see far-right activits show up to his events wearing life preservers, and is recognized as the single most important reason he has not nor ever will run for President of the United States. Check out Wikipedia's entry on Ted Kennedy, as it contains far more about the situation than it does on his career.

This is not Karma farming... I don't need it anymore, and I realize that the vast majority of summer /. readers probably don't know this, and the joke went way over their heads.

Re:Answer.

[Jahf]

Fuck this country.

You're kidding, right? I've been with 12 people in my life ... no way could I get through the US population in my lifetime. However this does work good as a blanket statement for the following.

Fuck the President.

No. No no no.

Fuck your mom.

My Oedipal complex went away when I was 13, thanks

Fuck you.

That one's easy but not so much fun.

Fuck your friends

If I can pick and choose, gladly. Otherwise I'd have to say no.

fuck the Senate

Have you SEEN those people ... well ... at least Strom Thurmond is gone.

fuck the House

Ok, so maybe there are a couple in there.

fuck all goverment employees.

Only if I can start at the interstate tollbooth, there's usually a couple hotties there. If I have to start at the DMV ... yeesh, have you SEEN those people? Oh wait, I said that about the Senate ... ok, so I'd take this category over that one.

Oh, and fuck you too :P

Re:Answer.

[RLW]

He should have been on the don't drive list many, many years ago.

Funny...

[Phoenix-IT]

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?

Re:Funny...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.

Silly Homeland Security...

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody knows Ted Kennedy is no threat unless you're driving in a car with him.....

Could it have been...

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:Could it have been...

[mattlary]

Hey Farva; what's the name of that restaurant you like with all the shit up on the walls?

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!

The slippery slope

[pedestrian crossing]

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!

Re:The slippery slope

[freak4u]

Found the quote I was looking for
"When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs. When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent. When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don't own a gun. Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet." --Lyle Myhr

Re:The slippery slope

[BoFo]

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

Re:The slippery slope

[freak4u]

Agreed. People wonder how the holocaust happened, how communist Russia happened; wonder how people didn't see it starting. put on your glasses

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.

There could be an innocent explanation

[John Jorsett]

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.

Clerical Error...

[Rayonic]

He was supposed to be on the No-Drive List.

Wonder what happens to Michael Moore

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Wonder what happens to Michael Moore

[Anonymous Coward]

Nixon had an enemies list, and he succeeded in using several departments of his executive branch to harass them. Of course, Tricky Dick is the only person forced to resign from the presidency, and you can be assured that it isn't because he merely TRIED to do illegal things.

Kenneth Star spent upwards to $50 Million dollars investigating Clinton and all he could show at the end of it was that Billy lied about getting a blow job. Of course, Newt couldn't find ANYONE in congress to initiate proceedings against Billy because all Newt's people were guilty of similar offenses.

So, excuse me, but get YOUR facts straight. Billy was impeached (f*cking unbelievable) because he decided to lie about his blow job. You can be assured that if Kenny had any suspicion that Billy was guilty of a REAL crime that he would have spent another $20 Million chasing it down.

Re:Wonder what happens to Michael Moore

[bretharder]

Not that I support Clinton...
But my understanding is that Clinton asked the Judge to define Sexual relations.
And the Judge said Sexual relations = intercourse.
And Clinton correctly (according to his story) stated that he did not have sexual relations with ML.
By the Judge's definition oral sex was not considered sexual relations.

given the record

[kc0re]

Given the record of deaths in the Kennedy family, Tom Ridge was probably protecting Ted from himself.

Just to point this out

[CptChipJew]

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

Anyone else think this was politically motivated?

[bretharder]

A Liberal Democrat Senator gets put on the No-Fly list by mistake _AND_ It takes 3 weeks to get removed?

The fly on the wall...

[petepac]

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!!!

Maybe that's not the real reason.

[hal2814]

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?

It wasn't a blacklist...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a weight limit.

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....

Re:So what will it be folks?

[gtaluvit]

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.

Re:Publicity Stunt

[slartibart]

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.

Re:Not on "No-Fly" list but rather the "Screen" li

[katre]

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.

Re:So what will it be folks?

[pedestrian crossing]

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.

Re:Publicity Stunt

[TheZax]

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.

What was the true inconvenience?

[MyNameIsFred]

Just this week I flew to Boston, and I was blacklisted because I was on the no-fly list. The consequence... When I tried to use the E-ticket machine to get my boarding pass, the machine said it was unable to finish the transaction, please ask for assistance. After waiting in line, the airline rep at the counter asked for my ID, made a phone call, asked a few questions, and then gave me my ticket. He told me that my name was on the no-fly list, however, my middle name and driver license number did not match who they were looking for. On the return flight, I had not problem at all.

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.

Re:What was the true inconvenience?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a muslim name (although personally an athiest) and every flight is
a fucking hell. I was kept in a glass booth for an hour, had my ID taken
away, asked questions and basically humilated.

It is OK when I am travelling alone, but it gets ugly when I am "randomly"
selected from amidst my coworkers and business partners.

Re:What was the true inconvenience?

[stratjakt]

They don't have to tell you anything. The TSA is exempt from the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) which says that all government laws, rules and regulations are to be available to the public.

But, like I said, they snuck in a "notwithstanding article blah blah" clause into the TSA, so they just toss out any FOIA requests about the system or its rules.

Is there just one list? Several lists? Who knows.

The TSA's scope is potentially much bigger than just airports, too. Just wait until there are TSA patrol cars out on the highways, and you can be pulled over, searched and arrested on "secret" laws or rules.

Maybe it's illegal to drive a hybrid civic with a "defeat Bush in '04" sticker. Who knows. They could make a regulation making it illegal to be any blacker than Will Smith.

Sure, it violates your constitutional right to due process. That is, being able to read and understand the laws you're charged with violating, which some lawyers might argue is somewhat important to presenting a defense.

But hey, we're fighting terror.

Brainless bureaucracy

[mariox19]

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!

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?

Re:Publicity Stunt

[djfray]

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.

Re:Publicity Stunt

[IPFreely]

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.

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.

Re: Ironic

[Black Parrot]

> Funny how a democratic senator is blacklisted after speaking at the DNC. Coincidence?

Maybe he's in trouble because the DNC wasn't held in an approved Free Speech Zone.

Wrong again!

[sherpajohn]

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.

Re:Wrong again!

[genixia]

- 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!

The 2nd question was because of your 'wrong' answer to the first. INS (or whatever they call themselves now) are required to ensure that you have enough funds to support your visit so that you won't resort to asking for handouts or robbery. The bizarre thing is that the law that codified this requirement was written a long time ago and the amount of cash required wasn't index linked, so it wouldn't cover a meal in a decent restaurant today. I can't remember exactly what the figure is, but it's something like $20.

When I was dating my now wife and make frequent trips into the USA without a green card, I used to keep $40 in my wallet just to avoid that hassle even though I, like you, used ATMs to support my stay.

Vote.

[kryzx]

"But what are ordinary citizens supposed to do if the Secretary of Homeland Security won't take their calls?"

Vote.

Re:Vote.

[EvilNight]

Then you VOTE THEM THE FUCK OUT. This entire problem occurs because the voters in this country fall into two categories: Those who are foolish enough to think there is a difference between Republicans and Democrats, and 2) those who honestly think that there is no way to vote in a third party (or fourth, or fifth, or twelfth, but let's not go as far as France.)

The biggest lie the media has ever gotten the american public to swallow is simply this:

Any vote for a third party is a vote for $NAME_of_REP_OR_DEM_PEOPLE_HATE.

Pure BULLSHIT. This lie serves one simple purpose: keep the two party corporate system in power. And people are stupid enough to believe this. Apparently nobody has ever taken the time to read up on how the voting system in this country actually works. They are content to mumble crap about the Electorial College and how futile it is to vote third party when in fact it is anything BUT futile. Just get them 5%, people. You get a third party a 5% share of the vote one time, and they can take care of themselves from that point on.

If you don't like the current candidates, vote for one of the candidates from the other 50 political parties in this country. Any 3rd party that gets in is going to have one agenda: CAMPAIGN REFORM. It's the only way for them to guarantee themselves a second term. Once those problems are fixed, this one party as two parties system is out the fucking door, and that's the best thing anyone could hope for in this country. It will put choice back into politics, and the rest will attend to itself.

If you won't vote, you are part of the problem. You live in this country, you CANNOT disclaim responsibility for political problems by refusing to exercise the only means you have by which to solve them. If everyone sitting around not voting got off their asses and voted 3rd party, they would OVERRULE all of the people voting R/D just by sheer numbers.

If you continue voting for the same two parties that keep running this country into the ground every single year, you are part of the problem. Republicans and Democrats care about one thing and one thing only: corporate payday. They are in the BUSINESS of selling laws to corporations with deep pockets. The only way to escape from this problem is to put more parties into the system to make it more resistant to corruption.

There is no mysterious savior that is going to appear and fix all of america's political problems. If the voters never wise up and take action, the erosion of freedoms at the expense of corporate interests is going to continue unabated, and someday the common people are going to be forced to take up arms and bring the government down the old fashioned way. If it goes far enough and the americans don't do anything about it, rest assured that someday the USA's foreign policy will tick off someone with the power to come in here and do it for us. You're fooling yourself if you think humanity has evolved to the point where another world war is not possible.

You are not an impartial observer. The mere fact that you draw breath on this planet obligates you. Try doing something that is becoming complete unamerican in modern times: take some responsibility and do something about the problems.

Another thing I noticed

[gr8_phk]

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?

Obligatory Dennis Leary quote

[(trb001)]

"Ted Kennedy. Great senator, but a bad date."

Re:oh yeah

[abb3w]

It would be robocool to fill the list up with random names. Like[...]

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?

Re:Publicity Stunt

[theLOUDroom]

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.

Kennedy's actual record of in-flight disturbances

[XavierItzmann]

What happens today to people who scream on airplanes, run down the aisle, and assault other passengers with pillows, like Kennedy has done?

Ted could drink about as much as any man and still appear relatively sober. That was the most dangerous of gifts. But something was different now, and this trip brought him back to thoughts of death and dying. "They're going to shoot my ass off the way they shot Bobby's," he said as the reporters listened and took their private notes. Wanting only to pop a few more drinks, he did not eat at the airport in Fairbanks on the way home. He got on the plane and asked the flight attendant for a drink, and then another. He swaggered up and down the aisle, bouncing a pillow on the head of one of his aides, shouting for him to wake up, and then weaving along shouting, "Eskimo power! Eskimo power!" The journalists listened and noted Ted's sad state, but none of them wrote about it in their publications when they got home.
Sons Of Camelot: The Fate Of An American Dynasty, by Laurence Leamer

Chanting political slogans and assaulting passengers? Okay, it was 1972, but we pay TSA to stay vigilant against anyone with a history of unstable political activity, don't we?

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/00 2283.php

Re:Anyone else think this was politically motivate

[jbash]

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.

Re:Not on "No-Fly" list but rather the "Screen" li

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

identity crisis

[recharged95]

It's "Edward M. Kennedy"

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.

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!

You think it's just one guy?

[revscat]

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!

Re:You think it's just one guy?

[cHiphead]

you are not fucking kidding, my WIFE gets stopped EVERY TIME she boards an airplane, especially when she has our son with her. *I* on the other hand, was only stopped once, when I was next to her in line and said I was her husband. From now on, we enter the lines seperately when our son is with us. The only remotely logical explanation is that she took trips with her parents to Hungary and around Europe before she was 10 years old and thus is on some sort of watch list.

Fuck 9/11 and fuck homeland security. If someone is determined and smart, they can blow up any goddamn thing they want, no amount of flag waving bullshit security is going to save us. Its reality and people don't want to face it. The only way we catch these people (the ones REALLY determined to hit us) is a LOT of hard work by LAW ENFORCEMENT (NOT MILITARY!) with an extra hefty scoop of LucK. Terrorism is a law enforcement issue, not an issue of war.

Re:You think it's just one guy?

[brandonY]

Eh, there could be lots of other reasons for your wife to get stopped every time. For instance, does she look rather like a young arabic man?

Re:Ironic

[MarkPNeyer]

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...

Ms. Coulter?

[revscat]

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.

Re:Ms. Coulter?

[stratjakt]

Hell, Nixon put the entire "War on Drugs" we have today into motion, largely to punish the anti-war hippies who were driving him out of office.

My Story

[gone.fishing]

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.

Re:My Story

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations. You have donated many hours of your life to the training of airport security. There aren't many real terrorists out there, so they had to practice on somebody.

It was an accident

[danuary]

For the safety of everyone else, they meant to put him on the no DRIVE list. It was an honest mistake.

It's not about inconvienience: it's about justice

[revscat]

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.

Re:Foreigners...

[SillyNickName4me]

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.

Re:Not on "No-Fly" list but rather the "Screen" li

[digerata]

About the racial comment, its not entirely true. I'm caucasian, wear normal clothes, and I've had to go through it 2 out of 5 flights since January.

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?

Re:oh yeah

[ender-]

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-

Re:So what will it be folks?

[Watcher]

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?

relevant bit on NPR yesterday,can be downloaded...

[justins]

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.

There were a few other interesting, chilling tidbits regarding homeland security. Fun stuff:
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wf Id=38597 56

Re:Ironic

[MntlChaos]

Unfortunately, I have little time to write an eloquent post as you did, so here goes.

You say that incompetence is not one of the things you can take people criticizing the President about. Incompetence is being unable to competently perform one's job. When that job is as important as President of the United States, incompetence is utterly unacceptable

Something I don't understand...

[An. (Coward)]

...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.

Re:Anyone else think this was politically motivate

[BlewScreen]

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

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. ;-)

Re:This happened to my friend

[maxume]

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

Re:Ironic

[Theaetetus]

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.

Misleading point here... Russia, Germany, France, et al were calling for continued inspections searching for the WMD. Only Britain was at the similar conclusion... And Britain, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, et al. only came to that conclusion after Bush released his satellite pictures of trucks and other misleading or false information at the UN. Did Kerry lie? No. Did Clinton lie? No. Did Blair lie? I doubt it. Bush and his staff were the only ones privy to the inside information that he claimed "proved" that Iraq had WMDs. To claim the others, who were merely saying "yes, given the evidence you show us Mr. President, and given that we trust you and don't think you're a liar, we come to the same conclusion."

The conclusion later proved to be false, evidence later proved to be false (and falsified - see the 9/11 report) - therefore, the people who believed the falsified evidence are exonerated... and the ones who knew it was false are implicated.

-T

Re:Ironic

[intnsred]

So he lied to us about iraq having WMD?

What the hell, right? So what if ~1000 American kids are dead and 10,000+ are mangled. So what if tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead and many more are mangled. So what if we jail Iraqi resistance fighters by the thousands and torture people routinely? What's the big deal? They're only people, right?! :-(

What about the governments of Russia, Germany, Britain, even France coming to similiar conclusions about WMD?

I'd say Britain doesn't count; Blair is Bush's poodle and he was willing to do or say anything to curry favor with his masters.

As for Russia, Germany and "even France", they came to no such conclusion. They resisted the war, they refused to give the US the UN fig-leaf for its oil grab.

And to top it all off, for the months that UN inspectors were in Iraq before the war, searching everywhere the US told them to, they found no WMD!

There was only 1 government (and its poodle) who was bleating endlessly about Iraqi WMD. The US gov't.

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.

Because they were "briefed" on "secret" intelligence by the liars who wanted to go to war. They were told stories about how Iraq had pilotless drones and would mount them on ships and would attack the US mainland (all fiction), and many other fairy tales.

They were spineless, not daring to go against the gov't/media-generated war hype, and so they believed the lies that were fed to them. (But don't worry too much about them, they'll be "rewarded" with campaign donations from the corporate drones who were gleefully campaigning for war.)

Why the hell would you go into a country based on a total lie?

Well, the three most popular reasons are:

(1) To secure OIL, especially the huge reserves which were closed off to US oil companies and nationalized and used for Iraq's own benefit

(2) To eliminate one of Israel's enemies and generally weaken the Arab world

(3) To secure new US military bases (since the Saudis were kicking us out) in the Middle East

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.

In other words, you'd rather not talk about messy details.

Why talk about the sheer immorality and undemocratic methods used by a war-mongering administration to invade a country and kill thousands, and to rewrite its society turning it into a "free market" playtoy for American corporations, when instead we can talk about the "military efficacy" of our illegal invasion?

Why talk about corruption of politicians and corporations writing laws and the entire wholesale purchase of our two[sic]-party electoral system, when we can instead talk about the details of a law, McCain-Fiengold, which does not work, and which was written by two people steeped in the corruption of the system that they were trying to give a quick paint job to so as to prevent more systemic reform?

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.

So, let me get this straight

[Rogerborg]

1. Andy Anthrax uses the name Bobby Bomber as an alias and this name somehow makes it onto the No Fly List.
2. Andy turns up at the airport and claims to be Bobby.
3. The girl at the checkin desk says "I'm sorry, Mr Bomber, your name is on the secret no-fly list. You can wait and see a supervisor, or you can go home and choose another alias next time.".

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.

Re:Foreigners...

[TGK]

Damn it, why is it I only have mod points when we're discussing Star Wars and Babylon 5?

These points are well taken and should be observed by all /. 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.

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.... .... help help I'm being repressed!"

Big Difference

[Peaceful_Patriot]

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'.

Re:Big Difference

[Steve Franklin]

I do seem to recall something about issuing papers to privateers for the specific purpose of harrassing the British fleet. And I'm sure if George had had the opportunity he would have carried the war to Britain itself. Somehow, the Battle of Trenton doesn't impress me as a standard military operation. I mean, attacking the enemy on Christmas Day when they were drunk as a skunk? Is this your idea of the proper rules of engagement?

"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.'"

You, Sir, have been watching too much Faux News. These guys couldn't care less about our way of life, except to the extent that it requires us to steal their oil to keep it operating.

Re:It's just as stupid ...

[Tassach]

It's just as stupid to believe that Bush deliberately targeted him for being a liberal democrat

Yeah, and it was just as stupid to believe that Nixon ordered his goons to break into the Democratic National Comittee's headquarters and steal documents. Oh wait, that REALLY HAPPENED.

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.

Re: Florida voter registration records

[volgers]

I'm terrible sorry to inform you about this from the other side of the Atlantic, but they did do it on purpose. This was big news 4 years ago, discovered by the BBC. By an American journalist btw.

See: www.gregpalast.com

a good thing

[wardk]

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.

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.

The Real Reasons For Iraq

[WombatControl]

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.

What the hell, right? So what if ~1000 American kids are dead and 10,000+ are mangled. So what if tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead and many more are mangled. So what if we jail Iraqi resistance fighters by the thousands and torture people routinely? What's the big deal? They're only people, right?! :-(

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.

I'd say Britain doesn't count; Blair is Bush's poodle and he was willing to do or say anything to curry favor with his masters.

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 Real Reason

[vwjeff]

The Senator was blacklisted to save the airlines money. Free booze in First Class has to have limits.

Re:Not on "No-Fly" list but rather the "Screen" li

[mpaque]

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'.

You have no right to correct your data...

[geekotourist]

From This March 2003 Slashdot article: the government has no responsibility or requirement (and thus no incentive) to have correct data or to be corrected. Ted Kennedy gets a rare exception because he's not only famous but powerful. You and I have no chance. Just ask the 5,500 David Nelsons.

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:

"But there also will be tangible, specific harm.

The more information government compiles about us, the more of it will be wrong. That's simply a fact of life...

"If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted as suspicious because authorities don't know our reasons or our circumstances, we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm.

"Worse yet, we may never know what negative assumptions or judgments have been made about us in state files... Decisions detrimental to us may be made on the basis of wrong facts, incomplete or out-of-context information or incorrect assumptions, without our ever having the chance to find out about it, let alone to set the record straight.

" That possibility alone will, over time, make us increasingly think twice about what we do, where we go, with whom we associate, because we will learn to be concerned about how it might look to the ubiquitous watchers of the state..."

"The bottom line is this: If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free. That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society..."

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..."

Watch lists REDUCE security vs random checks

[Ungrounded Lightning]

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.