What's My Name (Again)?
This whole business of no-fly lists are, in my opinion, in need of work. While it's intuitive that people who pose a risk to aviation should not be allowed to board a plane, is it really that much effort to give a full identification of these people so that others with the same name can travel in peace?
Someone close to me recently spent three hours being detained by US immigration because his name was very similar to someone who wasn't allowed to fly. Of course, this wasn't the same person, but do they really go with just a name and not bother with a date of birth, or physical description? Someone's brother has the same name as a wanted fugitive, but given how common the name and surname are, it seems odd that the police were going to go full SWAT team on a person who is 5'5" and 280 pounds, versus the actual fugitive who is 6'2" and fighting form 200 pounds. As the lawyer incredulously asked the judge "Have you even bothered to look at my client?!?"
A friend of mine had to submit finger prints to the US Embassy in order to prove that he wasn't "that guy", and had to pay for the fingerprints himself! Does the US government not even realize that someone with the same name born *in a different country* may be different than the bad guy they are looking for?
To which US authorities would grunt: better to inconvenience innocent people than to let a guilty person get on the plane. Oddly enough, something similar was said about Gitmo detainees, but it's still the opposite of what was said a few centuries ago.
Justice indeed....
Someone close to me recently spent three hours being detained by US immigration because his name was very similar to someone who wasn't allowed to fly. Of course, this wasn't the same person, but do they really go with just a name and not bother with a date of birth, or physical description? Someone's brother has the same name as a wanted fugitive, but given how common the name and surname are, it seems odd that the police were going to go full SWAT team on a person who is 5'5" and 280 pounds, versus the actual fugitive who is 6'2" and fighting form 200 pounds. As the lawyer incredulously asked the judge "Have you even bothered to look at my client?!?"
A friend of mine had to submit finger prints to the US Embassy in order to prove that he wasn't "that guy", and had to pay for the fingerprints himself! Does the US government not even realize that someone with the same name born *in a different country* may be different than the bad guy they are looking for?
To which US authorities would grunt: better to inconvenience innocent people than to let a guilty person get on the plane. Oddly enough, something similar was said about Gitmo detainees, but it's still the opposite of what was said a few centuries ago.
Justice indeed....
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home