Slashdot Mirror
Air Marshals Place Innocents on Secret Watch List
An anonymous reader writes "The Denver Channel 7 News reports that federal air marshals are operating under a quota for reporting a minimum number of suspicious travelers which is resulting in innocent people being placed on a secret government watch list. From the article: 'These unknowing passengers who are doing nothing wrong are landing in a secret government document called a Surveillance Detection Report, or SDR.'"
I'm sort of curious as to why this was placed under IT, and not YRO or Politics...
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Personally I disagree with quotas in law enforcement, as I do not think that they help catch the bad guys out there. I do think there is a lot more to the story than TFA indicates.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
</sarcasm>
Seriously, I can't think of a worse system than quotas to put investigators under. It just screams Civil-Rights-Violation-Waiting-To-Happen.
What would you expect? It's not as if we have a true justice system here in America. A criminal breaks into a home and causes $2,000 worth of damage and what do we do? Feed him and take car of him in a jail while the homeowner is left to clean up the mess and insurance money (paid by the homeowner) takes care of the losses. Or, more often than not, simply let the criminal go with a warning. Then we spend our money falsely accusing innocent people just to keep up a "quota". Greed then drives what we like to think of as justice. It happens more than you think: e.g. officer's needing quotas for traffic violations & arrests and so caring more about their quota than justice in a certain situation. I know, it's not all bad and there are cops and agents that really DO care about justice. It's just the system that is messed up...
Homeland Security: Our budget is proportional to the number of terrorists we find. When there aren't enough terrorists, we make them.
Ayn Rand was an optimist.
How about you?
[neo con parody off]
Just how silly is that, I ask? How do you meet a quota when you're looking out for suspicious people? You declare someone suspicious who isn't, how else?
... well, there.
God, just how DUMB are those national security morons? If anything, the NSA makes me feel LESS safe when I'm in the US. I feel like I'm under constant surveillance, being a suspect for being
Is that what you want to accomplish, NSA? Is that the goal? Alienate the rest of the world, even those that used to LOVE your country, turn the rest of the world into your enemy so you can have perpetual war? The US are turning faster and faster into everything I hated about the communist system.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We'll all be on the watch list by then anyway.
Game... blouses.
The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they're required to submit at least one report a month. If they don't, there's no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments.
If true, these people have just admitted they weren't subjecting innocent people to punishment because they'd lose their job otherwise and be unable to support their family -- an understandable, if still morally weak position. No, they did it because they wanted more money. Or a dental plan. Or a longer vacation. That's what's known as being stunning and embarassingly selfish.
At the risk of godwinning myself, what's that famous quote about the holocause that goes along the line of "there will always be number-crunchers behind the scenes eager to see if they can make the count even higher next time?"
A couple of thoughts. 1. Sadly various 'US no fly lists' are being used by airlines in countries that don't yet have their own list -- e.g. Canada -- in an attempt to reduce liability. Meaning, the implications of this article are greater than some might realize. 2. A key question about no-fly lists is the criteria used to put people on it. Ideally, it should be transparent so, for instance, everyone out there with a criminal record isn't concerned every time they get on a plane that law enforcement officials will descend upon them. Beyond the quota issue, this article points to a series of systemic problems relating to the criteria used to make these lists, which from my reading seem to be: a. arbitrary b. left to individual discretion c. without oversight or review checks and balances d. unappealable, regardless of how flimsy the evidence is. As more and more countries draft their own no-fly lists, such issues are likely to grow in importance and become bigger problems within the international (rather just American) political sphere.
the system is broken from the top down. the only solution is to format the goverment and reinstall. this image is corrupt.
-.no
Boy, I'm feeling more secure everyday...Not.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
i think people are missing the point. there IS NO threat that these air marshalls are supposedly there to protect us from. (this is clearly obvious from tfa and the one linked in this thread.) there may be miscellaneous threats, but they cannot protect us from those any better than pre-air marshall security.
they are there for psychological puposes, so that people who think there is a threat feel safer. people can point to some action that the government is doing. "look, they have air marshalls and no-fly lists."
there is no worldwide terror organzation or network. go to archive.org and download (bbc documentary) the power of nightmares (i wonder how long it'll be up?) i have friends who work for "homeland security" and it's all a sham. too bad it costs us money.
if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
I'm sorry, which bias is this? The bias against putting innocent people on government watchlists to fill a quota?
It's probably posted because people here seem to care about civil rights and, in particular, about how they apply to domestic government surveilance. What's wrong with that?
this whole site slides further and further to the left every day
So? If the concept of civil liberty offends you, then I guess this isn't the site for you. Problem solved.
(I love how 'left' and 'liberal' are dirty words now, say what you want about the Republican party, but their PR is top notch)
sic transit gloria mundi
Ironically enough, the Air marshalls are basically ensuring they won't stop any terrorists. The list will become so bloated, cumbersome, invasive and obnoxious that people will stop taking it seriously. The real work of hunting down potential terrorists - that some of the marshalls did - will be drowned out by innocent people who looked at the lazy marshalls cross eyed.
Often, beurocracy cannot sustain its own weight. It expands and expands until it cannot do the purpose for which it was designed. Then it gets axed by a budget cutter, is reincarnated as lightweight version of itself, and expands until... you get the idea. It isn't a viscious cycle so much as a waste of resources and failed programs.
Actually, since 9/11, American's are now less safe than before.
How can that be?
Because the cost of airline travel in both time, money, and convenience has gone up. That has made more Americans look to alternatives, like driving, which are much, much less safe (per passenger-mile).
We'd probably be more safe had we responded to 9/11 by literally doing nothing at all.