NOTE TO READERS: We did this little feature post yesterday, thinking nothing of it — and are reposting it so you can read the comments…and comment. Read the first comment in the comments on this post. We doubt if that comment was from who the commentator claimed he is — an email to that person came back — but we welcome YOUR comments on that issue and what YOU think. We have expressed our views on what his comments in the comments section as well.
Psst. Hey Arnold. See that little guy over there? We gotta call our bosses at TSA because his name is on the no fly list. Waddaya mean “he’s just a baby?” It could be a disguise! I don’t care if his finger is in his nose — maybe there’s a boxcutter up there! Don’t you see? His name is on the no-fly list! He’s a terrorist!
NOTICE: If you’re tiny, carried in a bundle by your parents, and only weigh a few pounds saying “goo-goo, daa-daa” may not be enough to keep you and your folks from being barred from getting on an airplane. File this in Your Tax Dollars At Work Department:
Infants have been stopped from boarding planes at airports throughout the U.S. because their names are the same as or similar to those of possible terrorists on the government’s “no-fly list.”
It sounds like a joke, but it’s not funny to parents who miss flights while scrambling to have babies’ passports and other documents faxed.
Ingrid Sanden’s 1-year-old daughter was stopped in Phoenix before boarding a flight home to Washington at Thanksgiving.
“I completely understand the war on terrorism, and I completely understand people wanting to be safe when they fly,” Sanden said. “But focusing the target a little bit is probably a better use of resources.”
The government’s lists of people who are either barred from flying or require extra scrutiny before being allowed to board airplanes grew markedly since the Sept. 11 attacks. Critics including the American Civil Liberties Union say the government doesn’t provide enough information about the people on the lists, so innocent passengers can be caught up in the security sweep if they happen to have the same name as someone on the lists.
That can happen even if the person happens to be an infant like Sanden’s daughter. (Children under 2 don’t need tickets but Sanden purchased one for her daughter to ensure she had a seat.)
“It was bizarre,” Sanden said. “I was hugely pregnant, and I was like, ‘We look really threatening.'”
According to this AP piece, the government is working (presumably hard) to fine-tune this problem.
ACLU lawyer Tim Sparapani said the problem of babies stopped by the no-fly list illustrates some of the reasons the lists don’t work.
“There’s no oversight over the names,” Sparapani said. “We know names are added hastily, and when you have a name-based system you don’t focus on solid intelligence leads. You focus on names that are similar to those that might be suspicious.”
The Transportation Security Administration, which administers the lists, instructs airlines not to deny boarding to children under 12 — or select them for extra security checks — even if their names match those on a list.
But it happens anyway. Debby McElroy, president of the Regional Airline Association, said: “Our information indicates it happens at every major airport.”
The TSA has a “passenger ombudsman” who will investigate individual claims from passengers who say they are mistakenly on the lists. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said 89 children have submitted their names to the ombudsman. Of those, 14 are under the age of 2.
If the ombudsman determines an individual should not be stopped, additional information on that person is included on the list so he or she is not stopped the next time they fly.
Babies have a phrase for all this: “What a bunch of pooh-pooh heads..”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.