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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.'"
That is utter and complete bullshit.
I am on that list. I don't know why; I have never been arrested or convicted or tried or anything else. I served honorably in the US Army. I fly all the time.
About 18 months ago, I got on this watch list. It isn't so secret if you are a traveller. You can't use the fancy-shmancy self-service kiosks. You have to wait for a representative to help you. They have to make phone calls. The entire process takes an addiotional 10-15 minutes of not only my time, but the service representative, as well.
There was some poor Thai girl in Bangkok. It was her second day on the job, and she freaked out when my name came up as I was checking in. It took them about 20 minutes to make the call to the US and get stuff squared away.
No, I have not been arrested because of it. But, as an innocent person, why am I singled out for bureaucratic harrasement? I am denied the conveniences of other citizens simply because of my name existing on a watch list.
So, I call bullshit.
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I have a relatively common anglo name (like John Doe) which has found its way onto the air watch list. To try and take myself off of the list, I had sent stacks of documentation, my birth certificate, copies of my passport and volumes of other personal crap to the TSA with a request to clear my name. The TSA, after many months, sent back a one page form letter that said they had taken some "actions", but said that those actions may or may not be ignored by the airlines. Some airlines still will not let me check in without going thru the counter and a confirmation phone-call to somebody in the back room somewhere. I don't know if that watch list is the same as the SDR, but it's causing a lot of unnecessary and unwarranted grief.
I'm sure Bin-Hiding is laughing his ass off. He won.
This is your typical case of quantity being chosen instead of quality.
It's true though. I had a law professor (business law) tell me that the law is designed so that you are always breaking it at any given time. Then the authorities enforce the law when they feel it is required or they want to "throw the boook at you".
This is in response to All of the Above rather than the direct parent comment.
In this book, they "killed" Montag at the end of the book by finding a random guy walking down the street and shooting him while the live cameras proclaimed that the "dangerous criminal" has been taken off the streets by the ever-vigilant government.
Simple smoke and mirror style politics. We need X number of criminals to justify actions A, B and C.
Obviously this does not apply to an Air Marshall who gets drunk and falls asleep on the plane but is the guy on the De Moines to Bend Oregon run going to find as many suspicious people as the guy on the NY to Boston run?
Actually getting lost in Washington DC is probably enough to get you on the list. I spent a night driving around in circles around the White House late at night looking for my hotel. Took me about 4 trips around it before I found my hotel. It was up a narrow street with a very small sign pointing to the street. The view of the sign was mostly blocked by a hedge. My consultant partner did the same thing, except it took him even more circles and he ended up being stopped by the Secret Service who directed him to the hotel. This was before 9/11. I imagine things would be worse now days, hopefully the Secret Service has figured out that they need to get that hotel's sign enlarged and remove a certain hedge or they will keep having to stop lost visitor's from circling the White House, and adding lots of innocent names to their watchlist. Garbage in garbage out, the more garbage they toss into the Federal database the less useful it is and the more likely real terrorists will actually get through.
Why? Because even if governments adhere to what we might call the "industry-average in mindless stupidity" governments can cause far more damage than most industries. From the article:
"Q: What kind of impact would it have for a flying individual to be named in an SDR?
A: That could have serious impact ... They could be placed on a watch list. They could wind up on databases that identify them as potential terrorists or a threat to an aircraft. It could be very serious," said Don Strange, a former agent in charge of air marshals in Atlanta. He lost his job attempting to change policies inside the agency."
Ok, this former agent lost his job because he tried to change policies inside the agency. Anyone want to bet this was over SDR quota? And what other enlightened "policies" are in effect? And yes ... such things will stick around ... if only because it's a bit hard to shop around for alternative governments.
Ok ... so putting someone's name in an SDR has potentially serious consequences for that person. Add to this the (probably MBA-driven) desire for "quantifiable targets" and see the result. From the article "Although the agency strongly denies any presence of a quota system, Las Vegas-based air marshals have produced documents that show their performance review is directly linked to producing SDRs.".
Great ... just great. That leaves us with only one option ... don't fly near the end of the month.
Apparently my dad was put on this a while ago when he flew into Las Vegas.
Nobody bothered him that day, but a few days later when he was checking in to go back home he was told he was put on a watch list. I guess the checkin person probably shouldn't have told him that, but she said it only meant a little extra attention on him at the airport and not to worry.
Since then, no one at checkin has mentioned him being on a list. However after that he hasn't been allowed to go back into the terminal to pick up my younger brother (which he had done several times before).
That's not surprising - we had a consultant on our project go back to India on a 3-week vacation, which got extended another 6 weeks because his name was on the "do not fly" list. It took him that long to get his identify clarified and his visa restored, along with monumental efforts on our end to work through Senatorial offices, etc. to try and clear through the red tape.
And in the end, our company's legal advisors said that 6 weeks should be considered a very quick turnaround under the circumstances...
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I know a guy who is on the no-fly list. It's a real bitch, because his job requires him to fly a lot.
So, he goes to the airport, checks his luggage, deals with the BS of being on the list, and flys to his job.
Whereupon he gets his luggage, puts on his uniform, gets his piece, puts on his ID, gets in his plane, and takes off.
He's a commercial airline pilot - authorized to carry a pistol in the cockpit, and to fly a plane full of people.
But he cannot board a flight as a passenger without a bunch of BS because his name is on the No Fly list.
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