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.
A Liberal Democrat Senator gets put on the No-Fly list by mistake _AND_ It takes 3 weeks to get removed?
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?
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)
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
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.
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.
> 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.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
I love slashdot. Where else would you find wild anti-republican conspiracy theories considered insightful? Ohh... wait...
The whole situation in this country is just getting rediculous. Is it possible for people to believe that George W. Bush is a terrible politician, but a decent guy who just has a difference of opinion with you? I'm so sick of republicans acting as if they represent all of what's right and good in this country and claiming that the democrats represent immorality and stupidity. I'm also tired of the democrats acting as if all the republicans are either slaves to the corporate interests, and either evil crooks or else slobbering boobs who've been convinced to go along with the crooks. Jesus Christ ! Is it that unlikely that we just have differences of opinion? Is is that hard to beleive that Bush isn't trying to gather more power for himself for evil purposes - that he's just trying to keep us safe?
You can bitch all you want about Bush having said that he'd be a uniter and not a divider. Personally I think that's a stupid thing to say, but it's definately not as if Bush is intentionally trying piss off half the country. He's been being attacked since before he got into the office, with liberals saying he looked like a monkey, that he was stupid and talked funny and a religious zealot and incompetent. Are you at all surprised that this country is very divided, when half the people think their president is defeding them from evil, and the other half thinks the president looks/talks like a monkey?
I understand completely if you disagree with the president's policies, and you'd like to voice your opinion. I think there are plenty of valid disagreements you could make with the bush administration. The problem is that all I seem to hear is : "Ohhh that Bush - He's just evil! We invaded an innocent country all for oil and haliburton, after he stole the election in florida. And have you heard how talks all goofy?"
I can take criticism of the president - it's important and needs to be done. But not when the main critisim is that he's :
1) evil
2) incompetent
3) looks/talks like a monkey
If I beleived half of the critcisms being made of Bush, I'd be calling for armed revolution. The problem is that most of them just don't hold water at all. So he lied to us about iraq having WMD? What about the governments of Russia, Germany, Britain, even France coming to similiar conclusions about WMD? Why is it that Bush is called a Liar when John Kerry and Hillary Clinton came to the same conclusion that Bush did, re WMD. Why the hell would you go into a country based on a total lie? That doesn't do anything at all to help him. You'd have to beleive (which i'm under the impression that a lot of liberals do these days) that bush has the intelligence of a four-year old and about as much morality as Adolf Hitler.
Can we please raise the level of political discourse in this country? I would love to argue about the military efficacy of invading Iraq. I'd love to debate the merits of McCain Fiengold. I'd love to talk about social security and whether it can or should be exteneded and fixed. It looks like all i've got to look at this election year is a man who is an evil, stupid, incompetent ape, or a man who was apparently in vietnam thirty years ago where, depending different sides of the story, was either a hero or a shmuck. Do you honestly think that if Kerry gets elected, this country will be 'unified' again? You're going to hear all sorts of outrages charges against him, too. Just you wait...
My blog
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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
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
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.
"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. ;-)
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
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.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
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.
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 Senator was blacklisted to save the airlines money. Free booze in First Class has to have limits.
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