DHS grounds air marshalls for having names similar to the no-fly list
Tim sez, "According to this article in the Washington Times, some air marshals are being forbidden entry to the airplanes they are supposed to protect, as they have similar names to people on the no-fly list.
Another nugget from the article- Chertoff says just one airline is seeing some 9,000 false positives EVERY DAY from this list."
Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) familiar with the situation say the mix-ups, in which marshals are mistaken for terrorism suspects who share the same names, have gone on for years — just as they have for thousands of members of the traveling public.Link (Thanks, Tim!)One air marshal said it has been "a major problem, where guys are denied boarding by the airline."
"In some cases, planes have departed without any coverage because the airline employees were adamant they would not fly," said the air marshal, who asked not to be named because the job requires anonymity. "I've seen guys actually being denied boarding."
A second air marshal said one agent "has been getting harassed for six years because his exact name is on the no-fly list."
the latest
latest episodes
haha.
yep, that's how you stop terrorism alright.
Yep, we are definitely safer now.
Ya know -- it would be so easy to watch which people don't get questioned and are allowed to board, and then start committing acts of terrorism using there names -- this way we can ground everything.
Or better yet, have a suicide bomber stand in the long lines created by these 'safety measures' and create havoc that way (i.e. blow people up).
When are we going to actually start thinking --
This is f-ing ridiculous.
Eventually, security eats itself.
Now if they'd just ground the rest of the FAMs, we'd all actually be a little safer and both the government and the airlines would save some money.
No one could have foreseen this.
No ONE.
There's a simple solution...
Just conclude that Al Qaeda has infiltrated the Federal Air Marshals.
Problem solved!:-P
Every time I think I have witnessed the nadir of spectacular fucktitude that is Homeland Security they raise the bar.
Maybe the air marshals should get those "I am not a terrorist" Preferred Flyer passes issued by the gub'mint?
Bwahahahahahahaha
Ahahahahahahahaha
That is all.
Not to be a contrarian but I think they've got the right idea. I mean, who do we trust least? The DHS. And who are they not letting on planes with us?
Doesn't this seem like a data management and delivery issue? Shouldn't our homeland security money be going to providing TSA workers with terminals that can find out information about a particular name? Here's an example of how such a process would work:
Let's say the name "Tuttle" is on the no-fly list.
A person named "Buttle" wants to fly.
Software determines that the flier might be the person on the no-fly list.
A TSA agent checks to see if Buttle has already been vetted. If they have been cleared, their photograph and state identification will show up in the database. They will be screened normally.
If they are not already in the database, they will require additional screening. A TSA agent will screen Buttle carefully, photograph them, and scan their identification into the kisok. All of this information will then be tied to the false match so the next time that Buttle comes through, they will have a way of telling that Buttle is not the person they seek.
If Buttle IS the person they seek, Homeland Security would have staff standing by to spot the matches, examine the uploading photograph and identification, and call in local law enforement to execute arrest warrants (or whatever). Maybe we would actually have TSA agents who are capable of arrest.
If you're going to have a bureaucracy, you should have one that operates correctly. If all those agents have are text-based green screens that only give a boolean go/no-go for a person based on a soundex of their name, we obviously aren't spending our security money in the right place.
You know, I think I understand how the Japanese feel about trains now.
The irony is rich. As long as we can talk about this stuff a laugh once in a while we probably aren't doomed.
Didn't Joseph Heller die like in '99 or something? Who's writing this stuff?
May Day! May Day!
Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!
@ #12 - That's a really logical solution, which is why it would never work. If the TSA were a startup with some good money and the correct access to the data they needed, they could likely get a pilot program off the ground in 4-6wks. Like you outlined, it's just not that complicated. The problem is that the TSA aren't a startup -- they are a huge (and ever-growing) bureaucracy that creates extra steps, hoops, hurdles and checks simply to justify its own existence. This is not to say that the timeline would be the only aspect impacted (a promise of six months to pilot with an actual delivery date of never); in all likelihood, the project would spin up, MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars would be spent, and then suddenly, moments before launch date, somewhere some bureaucrat (*ahem* "security expert") would squash the whole thing by refusing access to data. This, of course, would be data that a separate departmental review had already said was okay to give out. Then there would be an oversight review (more $$). Then the project would be restructured (more $$). Then it would be put up for bid to civilian contractors (more $$). Then it would get squashed again.
This is long way of saying, yes, I agree, we are spending our security money on the wrong things.
TSA/DHS/USA...
You are Bizare enough
You've won, ok!
You can stop playing now. Really.
There is no nead to get any more ridiculous.
some of the above mentioned require diligence and literacy....
Apart from that,did I not read something the other day about the TSA using date of birth to clear no-fly false positives on regular passengers?
Why is there so much disparity within the TSA's own actions as well as the reported inconsistencies? I think the rank and file can only be blamed so far.
Perhaps it is time to look for cause higher up the management ladder.
If only there were a way to create energy out of irony, the US could give up it's dependence on foreign oil.
Because a sixteen year old can buy a fake id, but not terrorists. they don't got the hook up.
But also, what are they telling these airline employees to make them so zealous?
ya wanna go? yer gonna glow!
"testifying on 15 April 2008 before a US House of Representatives transport security subcommittee, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley said that whole-body imaging portals employing millimetre-wave (MMW) technology will be deployed at two major international hubs.
The TSA subsequently announced on 16 and 17 April respectively the installation of L-3 ProVision portals at Los Angeles International (LAX) and New York JFK. This followed the first installation in October 2007 at Phoenix Sky Harbor International.
"In addition we will be purchasing at least 30 more of the machines for deployment at airports this year," Hawley added. "
So, how many years before they realise that a mere list of first and last names is kinda insufficient for identifying possible terrorists? They've reached Latter-day USSR levels of inefficiency here.
In related news, terrorists are now using the name "Kip Hawley" on their fake IDs.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
http://punchup.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/john_mccain.jpg
"We stopped him because his name was on the No-Fly List ... and when we searched him, we found that he was trying to take a gun on board the plane! I guess that list really works."
that was the TSA payroll list
@#12 JMULLAN
Yeah, but we all know that one little fly can mess it up really bad for poor Mr. Buttle.
@25 & 26:
W.B.Yeats, The Second Coming, for those of you who were struggling with the source. Memorizing that to write it on the blackboard during a staff meeting was my major contribution to a long ago and best forgotten software development project. It's just as appropriate here.
I know this has been said before, but bears repeating.
Why the HECK are people they think MIGHT be terrorists are just told to go away? If somehow they were preventing actual terrorists, shouldn't they I don't know- be ARRESTED? Proof that they don't really believe that everyone their turning away are terrorists. Yay for security theater.
Yeats reads like he's writing about current events. It makes my blood run cold.
@32
A Sphinx: the Middle East
The falcon cannot hear the falconer: technology out of control
Indignant desert birds: ineffectual critics
Yes, as fresh today as 80 years ago.
This all started when "Air Marshall Carlin" told the "Captain" (pilot) to go fuck himself.
Hmm ...
Can you get around the "no-fly" list by changing your name by deed poll?
This idiotic no-fly list has got to be a stalking horse for universal biometrics, right?
I mean, a basic list of suspicious NAMES is so clearly not going to work, that they must have instituted it, just so that it could be seen to fuck up royally, and then give them a justification for finger printing/retina scanning everyone on the planet. Maybe insert RFID chips in our brains.
Right?
There was terrorism in the 70's, and 80's and '90's. And we dealt with it, kind of OK. We even got the IRA to agree to stop it. What is it about nowadays, that causes such absurd spasms in the US and UK?
I'm surprised and disappointed that I haven't seen this point of view yet. I mean, I know I roll with lefty Clintonites here on BB, but seriously.
Better 9,000 false positives than one false negative.
Childish laughter and LOL GUVMENT remarks suggest someone who wasn't touched by the attacks in 2001. I can guarantee you, nobody who lost a family member or friend is losing sleep over these people's "harassment".
Better 9,000 false positives than one false negative.
Did you read the article? The TSA pinheads prevented security personnel from securing the planes. You oppose the US Constitution at the same time that you defend people who thwart actual security efforts. Are you working for Al Qaeda?
Kementari,Kementari...."al-Kementari"? Check his pockets for sand!
Yavanna Kementari is the Vala in charge of things that grow. She would be a her.
Indeed, Antinous, I read the article. And the fact that the FAMs are having this problem is lamentable, but I don't view it as a tragedy, a conspiracy, or grounds for ad hominem attacks on other posters.
Where, by the way, did I suggest for even a moment that I "oppose the US constitution" or "defend people who thwart actual security efforts"? (I don't actually expect an answer.)
That TSA screws up is not an opinion, it is fact. I've been flying several times a year since 2001, and I've had the amusing experience of being a blonde-haired, blue-eyed US-born citizen having to sprint to catch her plane while her bags were inspected for half an hour by an immigrant who bore the last name Hussein.
None of this in any way diminishes my opinion that it is FAR more preferable to have thousands of false positives, even the occasional grand-travesty-of-a-screwup false positive, than to have one false negative.
They prevented security from boarding the plane to secure it. Are you an idiot or just a troll?
In a couple of isolated incidents, over hundreds of thousands of flights, overzealous individuals stuck to the rules they had been taught instead of going with what seemed like "common sense". Those individuals may or may not have been punished or relieved of duty, and may or may not have been informed that, despite the PR debacle of what happened, the fault was the system's, and not their own.
Unsurprised by the continuation of ad hominem attacks, I will ask: are you a troll, or do you just enjoy pretending to be smarter than other people on the Internet?
TSA screening does nothing to prevent determined attack. The fact that no attack has taken place is not evidence the TSA accomplishes anything.
Some of us prefer to look at the overwhelming evidence of experience. You are contributing nothing new here.
Tak-kun,
Have you noticed that 'ad hominem' is the most popular phrase from the glossary section of The Troll's Handbook? Sheesh.
not "ad cephalopodieum"?
It's not so much the 9,000 false positives that I have a problem with. It's the 9,000 false positives that cost many more than 9,000 people time and money. C'mon -- we have reports of CHILDREN being refused.
The majority of people that get kicked from the flight have very little recourse. Why -- business runs the guvment.
I'm sorry TSA didn't allow you to board, but you have a non-refundable ticket.
Yes, yes -- I understand that your son was killed defending our country from the awful terrorists, but you're on the no-fly list, the fact that your geneological chart can trace both family members back to Crazy Horse makes you more of a threat.
In her case, 'ad verbithracium'.
#37 wrote:
"I can guarantee you, nobody who lost a family member or friend is losing sleep over these people's "harassment"."
No, actually, you can't. You and the blowhards on Fox and where all else cannot speak for the relatives, friends and loved ones of the victims of the September 11th attacks. You can't speak for the people who risked life to rescue them. You can't speak for the members of the armed forces who have gone overseas to respond to the 911 attacks.
You can only speak for your own arrogant self. You can only air your own cocksure, poorly-reasoned opinions on your own behalf. You speak for no one else. You have one voice, no matter how loud and annoying that voice is.
#37 Kementari, I wish you'd been in my class on Friday . . .
So when faced with a risk and a proposed solution, the rational thing to do is to figure out if the cost (not just money) of the proposed solution is justified by the expected cost (not just money) of the risk. To do this, you have to consider TWO numbers on the risk side: the magnitude of the loss (L), and the probability that it will happen (P). If the magnitude of the risk, adjusted for its likelihood, outweighs the cost of the safety measure (B), then it's justified.
Most people seem to focus almost exclusively on L - the magnitude of the possible loss of a terrorist attack. This is what you're saying we should focus on when you say that "it is FAR more preferable to have thousands of false positives, even the occasional grand-travesty-of-a-screwup false positive, than to have one false negative."
Unfortunately, in this world, we have limited resources, and we have to also consider the likelihood of harm, and the burden of enacting the safety measure, to decide which measures are deserving of our resources. We can't just enact every possible "safety measure" in the world.
And that simplified analysis isn't even examining whether the proposed measure is effective. I think part of the point of stories like this is that many of the measures used are laughably ineffective. I hope it's not being suggested that as long as there is a potential for a great harm, ANY measure to prevent it - no matter how costly or ineffective - should be enacted.
It's like removing the safety from a gun before loading it because you're afraid that the safety might maybe be all defective-like or something. Risk/benefit, benefit/risk. Hmmm.
http://www.panthic.org/data/attachments/4068_TSA%20Q1%20Report%20Card.pdf
That's particularly alarming because SFO is usually known as one of the sanest airports.