I wonder if CBS will release the list for general perusal -- on the web I share my first and last names with a World Bank attorney, the father of an Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing victim, a professor at Colorado State U. who was an astronaut candidate, a salesman in Texas, a controversial figure in the model airplane hobby, and a Usenet Macintosh guru, among others. I wonder how often they get confused with each other, or me with them or they with me?
The page wouldn't load for me but, like much of CBS news, it doesn't make sense. If known terrorists are left off the list, then why are people being nabbed for having similar names to known terrorists on the list?
And besides, it's not like Abdul Baby-Killer doesn't know who he himself is.
No, no, silly. It's not that known terrorists are all off the list--Osama bin Laden's on there, for example, and so are several of the hijackers from 9/11.
(Because, you know, bin Laden might conceivably be travelling under his own name on a plane in the future, and it's very important to catch him when that happens. Or one of the dead 9/11 hijackers. *Nothing* says terror like a zombie hijacker.)
It's that people who you could reasonably expect to be there are sometimes left off the list. Like the guys who were planning the liquid explosives on planes routine; I guess that putting them on the No-Fly list might have tipped them off that they were under investigation if they got a copy of the list, so it's not worth it to keep them off planes that way.
It's *also* that the fourty-four thousand names on the list include some people who you might be surprised to see on there (the president of Bolivia is my personal favourite).
And finally, it's that the list includes some names that are so generic that they apply to dozens of people. For example, Gary Smith, John Williams, and Robert Johnson are on the No-Fly list.
All of them.
Now, perhaps I have been slipping on current events, and John Williams is actually a known terrorist (as well as being an film score composer, a Chicago radio announcer, a guitarist, a Canadian MP, an Olympic gold medal winner (archery), Eva Gabor's third husband, an Australian water scientist, a pro basketball player, a saxophonist, a pro wrestler, and several dozen other things in America alone.
But at the moment, it strikes me as more a case of CBS reporting on events that don't make sense, rather than writing a story that doesn't make sense.
The list was compiled in 2001, with everyone who had any suspected contact with any suspected terrorists on it, and it is nothing but names.
This has accomplished two things: it has guaranteed that the vast majority of names on the list are totally innocent, and it has guaranteed that you can't tell *those* innocent people from all the *other* innocent people who share their name.
And the Schutzstaffel have admitted that they're *not* updating the list as new information comes in. When they think that somebody is a threat and shouldn't fly they *don't* add them to the no-fly list, because adding them to the no-fly list might tip them off that they've been caught.
So.
Senator Robert Kennedy can't fly without massive security hassles because "R Kennedy" is on the list, as a suspected alias of a suspected terrorist's suspected acquiantance.
The "liquid explosive" bombers, with their chemically impossible plan, *could* fly despite having been under surveillance for a year, because updating the list might tip them off.
And this is yet another reason why the list is moronic.
I find it hard to believe that after the hideously embarassing incompetence of granting visas to two of the dead 9-11 hijackers, that the U.S. govt. is going to allow any of the hijacker's names to appear on the no-fly list.
That, or maybe Abdul Akallajzz is as common in the Arab area as Michael Smith is here.
Snark: Heh, the only Kennedy Senator I know is suspected of letting a woman drown with no effort to summon help...not someone I'd want to sit next to on a plane.
I find no hideously embarrassing incompetence from Republicans and Republican appointees to be at all surprising or unbelievable. It shouldn't surprise you either, if you've been paying attention to the last 6 years.
> I find it hard to believe that after the hideously embarassing > incompetence of granting visas to two of the dead 9-11 hijackers, > that the U.S. govt. is going to allow any of the hijacker's names > to appear on the no-fly list.
Fourteen out of nineteen.
Please explain to me where you find this wondrous faith in the U.S. govt.
> That, or maybe Abdul Akallajzz is as common in the Arab area as > Michael Smith is here.
I think you might mean Abdulaziz Alomari; no Abdul was involved.
And yes, it might in fact be just as common. And at that point, doesn't it just highlight the stupidity of a list which is nothing but 44000 names, and omits such things as, oh, birthdates or descriptions or anything else that might keep it from sucking down a ridiculous amount of time and effort?
By the way, unless Google is also inconveniently not loading for you, you can find the story at their cache, here
I see no indication that it is. The sentence structure is sound, there are no references to fantastical elements, and the words convey a coherent meaning. The story makes sense.
(CBS) 60 Minutes, in collaboration with the National Security News Service, has obtained the secret list used to screen airline passengers for terrorists and discovered it includes names of people not likely to cause terror, including the president of Bolivia, people who are dead and names so common, they are shared by thousands of innocent fliers.
Steve Kroft's investigation, in which an ex-FBI agent who worked on its al Qaeda task force says the list of 44,000 names is ineffective, will be broadcast this Sunday, Oct. 8, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
The former FBI agent, Jack Cloonan, knew the list that was hastily assembled after 9/11, would be bungled. "When we heard the name list or no-fly list … the eyes rolled back in my head, because we knew what was going to happen," he says. "They basically did a massive data dump and said, 'Okay, anybody that's got a nexus to terrorism, let's make sure they get on the list,'" he tells Kroft.
The "data dump" of names from the files of several government agencies, including the CIA, fed into the computer compiling the list contained many unlikely terrorists. These include Saddam Hussein, who is under arrest, Nabih Berri, Lebanon's parliamentary speaker, and Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia. It also includes the names of 14 of the 19 dead 9/11 hijackers.
But the names of some of the most dangerous living terrorists or suspects are kept off the list.
The 11 British suspects recently charged with plotting to blow up airliners with liquid explosives were not on it, despite the fact they were under surveillance for more than a year.
The name of David Belfield who now goes by Dawud Sallahuddin, is not on the list, even though he assassinated someone in Washington, D.C., for former Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. This is because the accuracy of the list meant to uphold security takes a back seat to overarching security needs: it could get into the wrong hands. "The government doesn't want that information outside the government," says Cathy Berrick, director of Homeland Security investigations for the General Accounting Office.
Berrick says Homeland Security would probably agree that leaving such names off the list is a concern. The Transportation Security Administration is trying to fix the list, says Berrick, but after three years and an estimated $144 million, there's "nothing tangible yet," she says.
Even if the list is made more accurate, it won't help thousands of innocent travelers who share a common name on the list and who get detained, sometimes for hours, when they attempt to fly.
Gary Smith, John Williams and Robert Johnson are some of those names. Kroft talked to 12 people with the name Robert Johnson, all of whom are detained almost every time they fly. The detentions can include strip searches and long delays in their travels.
"Well, Robert Johnson will never get off the list," says Donna Bucella, who oversaw the creation of the list and has headed up the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center since 2003. She regrets the trouble they experience, but chalks it up to the price of security in the post-9/11 world. "They're going to be inconvenienced every time … because they do have the name of a person who's a known or suspected terrorist," says Bucella.
Cloonan, when shown a copy of the list from March 2006, tells Kroft, "I did see Osama bin Laden, both with an "O" in the first name and "U" in the second…I was glad to see that. But some of the other names I see here…I just have to scratch my head and say, 'My God, what have we created here?'"
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(no subject)
I wonder if CBS will release the list for general perusal -- on the web I share my first and last names with a World Bank attorney, the father of an Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing victim, a professor at Colorado State U. who was an astronaut candidate, a salesman in Texas, a controversial figure in the model airplane hobby, and a Usenet Macintosh guru, among others. I wonder how often they get confused with each other, or me with them or they with me?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 01:24 am (UTC)Reminds me of schisms in the pin-collecting circles.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 02:50 am (UTC)Please ignore the giggling sound coming from Kafka's coffin.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 08:50 am (UTC)And besides, it's not like Abdul Baby-Killer doesn't know who he himself is.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 08:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 01:29 pm (UTC)(Because, you know, bin Laden might conceivably be travelling under his own name on a plane in the future, and it's very important to catch him when that happens. Or one of the dead 9/11 hijackers. *Nothing* says terror like a zombie hijacker.)
It's that people who you could reasonably expect to be there are sometimes left off the list. Like the guys who were planning the liquid explosives on planes routine; I guess that putting them on the No-Fly list might have tipped them off that they were under investigation if they got a copy of the list, so it's not worth it to keep them off planes that way.
It's *also* that the fourty-four thousand names on the list include some people who you might be surprised to see on there (the president of Bolivia is my personal favourite).
And finally, it's that the list includes some names that are so generic that they apply to dozens of people. For example, Gary Smith, John Williams, and Robert Johnson are on the No-Fly list.
All of them.
Now, perhaps I have been slipping on current events, and John Williams is actually a known terrorist (as well as being an film score composer, a Chicago radio announcer, a guitarist, a Canadian MP, an Olympic gold medal winner (archery), Eva Gabor's third husband, an Australian water scientist, a pro basketball player, a saxophonist, a pro wrestler, and several dozen other things in America alone.
But at the moment, it strikes me as more a case of CBS reporting on events that don't make sense, rather than writing a story that doesn't make sense.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 01:40 pm (UTC)People can get very strange about the glue.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 03:02 pm (UTC)The list was compiled in 2001, with everyone who had any suspected contact with any suspected terrorists on it, and it is nothing but names.
This has accomplished two things: it has guaranteed that the vast majority of names on the list are totally innocent, and it has guaranteed that you can't tell *those* innocent people from all the *other* innocent people who share their name.
And the Schutzstaffel have admitted that they're *not* updating the list as new information comes in. When they think that somebody is a threat and shouldn't fly they *don't* add them to the no-fly list, because adding them to the no-fly list might tip them off that they've been caught.
So.
Senator Robert Kennedy can't fly without massive security hassles because "R Kennedy" is on the list, as a suspected alias of a suspected terrorist's suspected acquiantance.
The "liquid explosive" bombers, with their chemically impossible plan, *could* fly despite having been under surveillance for a year, because updating the list might tip them off.
And this is yet another reason why the list is moronic.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 07:21 pm (UTC)That, or maybe Abdul Akallajzz is as common in the Arab area as Michael Smith is here.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 07:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 07:24 pm (UTC)Can't it be both?
8-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 07:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 07:47 pm (UTC)http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17073-2004Aug19.html
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 08:38 pm (UTC)> incompetence of granting visas to two of the dead 9-11 hijackers,
> that the U.S. govt. is going to allow any of the hijacker's names
> to appear on the no-fly list.
Fourteen out of nineteen.
Please explain to me where you find this wondrous faith in the U.S. govt.
> That, or maybe Abdul Akallajzz is as common in the Arab area as
> Michael Smith is here.
I think you might mean Abdulaziz Alomari; no Abdul was involved.
And yes, it might in fact be just as common. And at that point, doesn't it just highlight the stupidity of a list which is nothing but 44000 names, and omits such things as, oh, birthdates or descriptions or anything else that might keep it from sucking down a ridiculous amount of time and effort?
By the way, unless Google is also inconveniently not loading for you, you can find the story at their cache, here
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 08:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 10:42 pm (UTC)Covering their asses is a skill the govt. has. Keeping the names of confirmed dead murderers on the no-fly list doesn't match up with that skill.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 10:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 11:57 pm (UTC)Here:
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-06 11:58 pm (UTC)Not the current bunch. They can't even get that right.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-07 11:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-12 09:59 pm (UTC)