30,000 People Mistakenly Put on Terrorist Watch List<\/a><\/p>\nSeems like such a simple thing, right? I mean, the goal is admirable: keep terrorists off planes. Okay, simple enough (assuming you have a good definition of what a “terrorist” really is – and it’s debatable whether our government has a good definition, but for the purpose of this discussion we’ll assume that we do have a good definition). <\/p>\n
So, we’ve got a goal – now how do we achieve it? Well, it seems simple, right? Just keep a list of terrorists or suspected terrorists, and don’t let those people on planes. Easy, right?<\/p>\n
If you’ve thought about this problem for more than 1 second, you’ve probably already picked up on the problems here, and how this is most definitely not<\/em> easy.<\/p>\nHow do you identify a terrorist? By name? Okay – what if they change their name? Or use a fake name? Well, you could start putting “suspected” fake names on the list, but it should be obvious that this will quickly spiral out of control, and people with common names (like Smith) will end up being banned – and there are a lot of Smiths out there. Eventually you’ll have a huge list of names, and almost everyone will be “suspected” and not allowed on the plane. <\/p>\n
In short, the system just does not work – and it cannot <\/strong>work. It is imperative that people understand this. An identification system for terrorists (or criminals, for that matter) CAN NOT<\/strong> work. Ever.<\/p>\nWhy, you ask? The answer is: because we have no world-wide system of unique, unforgeable identification. As long as names can be changed, papers can be forged, licenses & passports can be duplicated, there can be no positive identification of anyone – and when you’re dealing with inherently unknowable information (such as “suspected” terrorists), the issue quickly blurs out of control, and you end up with situations like this – when 30,000 ordinary people end up on a “watch” list, for who knows what reason. And in the end, a terrorist probably took a plane ride anyway.<\/p>\n
The whole system is just a waste of time, money, and effort. There are better ways to protect us against terrorism – we should just drop the whole “watch list” idea and focus on other, more reliable things.<\/p>\n
But that’s just my opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the “to truly mess things up, you need government” department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-b4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":716,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2006\/04\/03\/movie-plot-threats\/","url_meta":{"origin":686,"position":0},"title":"Movie-Plot Threats","author":"Keith Survell","date":"April 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"\"They're good for scaring people, but it's just silly to build national security policy around them.\"","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":899,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/06\/18\/over-reacting\/","url_meta":{"origin":686,"position":1},"title":"Over-reacting","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Terrorism is a real threat, and one that needs to be addressed by appropriate means. But allowing ourselves to be terrorized by wannabe terrorists and unrealistic plots \u2014 and worse, allowing our essential freedoms to be lost by using them as an excuse \u2014 is wrong.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":570,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/07\/11\/bad-conclusions\/","url_meta":{"origin":686,"position":2},"title":"Bad Conclusions","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I worry about the bad conclusions that our government officials are going to be coming to after this attack. It\u2019s so easy to become \u201creactionary\u201d to these sorts of things, and that\u2019s just what you don\u2019t want to do.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":186,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/07\/10\/propaganda\/","url_meta":{"origin":686,"position":3},"title":"Propaganda","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, I saw Fahrenheit 9\/11 today. It was, at times, very \"documentary\" like... but at other times, very \"propaganda\" like.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":300,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/11\/24\/amtrak-security\/","url_meta":{"origin":686,"position":4},"title":"Amtrak “Security”","author":"Keith Survell","date":"November 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Stupid, stupid, stupid... \"Amtrak conductors have begun random checks of passengers' IDs as a precaution against terrorist attacks. This works because, somehow, terrorists don't have IDs. I've written about this kind of thing before. It's the kind of program that makes us no safer, and wastes everyone's time and Amtrak's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1093,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/04\/30\/camera-terrorist\/","url_meta":{"origin":686,"position":5},"title":"Camera = Terrorist","author":"Keith Survell","date":"April 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"If you have any doubts that we are becoming more and more paranoid, this article should put your doubts to rest. Photographers have had it hard ever since 9\/11 - everywhere they go they're being harassed, having their cameras confiscated, being told they can't take photos here or there (often\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "society"","block_context":{"text":"society","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/society\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}