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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.'"
It was posted anonymously...
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Well, I wouldn't call it a secret anymore.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Good thing I'm too broke to fly.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The marshalls should just put everyone under the age of 5 on the "no fly" list. Marshall's meet their quota, and the flight is much more enjoyable for everyone else. Everybody wins.
I'm sort of curious as to why this was placed under IT, and not YRO or Politics...
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Boy, color me shocked.
Sad that this "protection" we all pay for is causing headaches for people who are minding their own business.
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.
Just got my ass chewed out for being under quota. Gotta keep my eyes open. But look ,over there, by the window. That frail old lady kind of looks suspicious to me. Got kind of an evil look about her. And what's that in her hands? OMG - Holy crap - knitting needles!! Quick, take her down she might just be trying to knit....
(wait for it)
AN AFGHAN!
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
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.
It seems a little odd that these guys have such a vested financial interest in finding "something" every month. I'm sure it's just a method of weeding out the slackers who just want to sleep on all the flights and say 'everything was fine'. But couldn't they find a better way to check on these marshals? Like a secret shopper program or something? It works in retail.....
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
So the Washington Post or NYT are the only reliable sources of information?
I'm very much worried about the reliablity of my sources also, but rejecting a story just because it isn't from a headlining news source?
That just seem as dead-brained as blindly believing anything anyone says.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
How about you?
[neo con parody off]
"Innocent passengers are being entered into an international intelligence database as suspicious persons, acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft ... and they did nothing wrong," said one federal air marshal.
2006.07.25 DenverChannel malsaid "unorthodox" as "suspicious". rectify.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
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.
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.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
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?"
"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them." - Frederick Douglass
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.
There is an article linked to from that page about how horribly mismanaged the Federal Air Marshals Service is.
Technoli
This is your typical case of quantity being chosen instead of quality.
I think these guys are spending too much time looking for possible terrorists and not enough time on the real threats.
Like snakes.
What I'm really scared of is mothaf*cking snakes on mothaf*cking planes!
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
the system is broken from the top down. the only solution is to format the goverment and reinstall. this image is corrupt.
-.no
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.
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.
www.eFax.com are spammers
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
Too cheap to fly? Got a car? Love America and hate terrorists?
Sign up for Highway Watch brought to you by DHS and the American Trucking Association!
http://www.highwaywatch.com/newtoHWW/index.html
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
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.