Mystification of Identity: You Say Yusuf, I Say Youssouf...
Gilmore, et al., are right, as always.
If you've been all-but cavity-searched -- okay, virtually
cavity-searched, given the state of modern X-Ray airport passenger
scanning technology -- and you don't have a weapon, exactly *how* is
knowing *who* you are going to affect your ability to hijack an
airplane?
I see nothing but the continuation of the privatization of air travel
from all this nonsense. More NetJet owners, more Marquis
Card-carrying business travellers, more investment capital for
companies like Eclipse Aviation.
Geodesic aviation, anyone? ;-)
Cheers,
RAH
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http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,702062,00.html
TIME.com Print Page: Nation --
Saturday, Sep. 25, 2004
You Say Yusuf, I Say Youssouf...
The Cat Stevens incident has its origins in a spelling mistake
By SALLY B. DONNELLY
The Yusuf Islam incident earlier this week, in which the former Cat
Stevens was denied entry into the U.S. when federal officials
determined he was on the government's "no-fly" antiterror list,
started with a simple spelling error. According to aviation sources
with access to the list, there is no Yusuf Islam on the no-fly
registry, though there is a "Youssouf Islam." The incorrect name was
added to the register this summer, but because Islam's name is
spelled "Yusuf" on his British passport, he was allowed to board a
plane in London bound for the U.S. The Transportation Safety
Administration alleges that Islam has links to terrorist groups,
which he has denied, British foreign minister Jack Straw said the TSA
action "should never have been taken."
The incident points up some of the real problems facing security
personnel as they try to enforce the "no-fly" list. One issue is
spelling; many foreign names have several different transliterations
into English. And the sheer size of the list is daunting; thousands
of names have been added in the last couple months, says one
government official, bringing the total up to more than 19,000 people
to look out for. That makes it difficult for airlines and government
agencies to check all passengers. Within the past six months, several
people on the no fly list have been mistakenly allowed to fly.
Still, the TSA is learning. It recently acknowledged that a Federal
Air Marshall, unable to fly for weeks when his name was mistakenly
put on the "no-fly" list, was in fact not a threat, and removed his
name from the list.
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R. A. Hettinga
At 06:03 PM 9/25/2004, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
Gilmore, et al., are right, as always.
If you've been all-but cavity-searched -- okay, virtually cavity-searched, given the state of modern X-Ray airport passenger scanning technology -- and you don't have a weapon, exactly *how* is knowing *who* you are going to affect your ability to hijack an airplane?
Of course it doesn't. However, if there are known potential hijackers who travel under their True Names or Known Aliases, and if there's a list of them that can be checked against, knowing the name you're using can validate whether you might be one of them, and preventing you from flying means you can't carry out your Clever New Hijacking Plan, such as converting that small guitar into a set of six piano-wire garrotes or mixing that liquid oxygen shoe sole with rum to form an explosive, and it prevents you from using previously undetected explosives in your luggage or whatever. There are several reasons you might divert a plane in this environment - - to spank the airline for not being careful enough about checking the list, independent of any hijacking risk. - to cover the ass of the person who put the wrong spelling on the list, even though the US Enemies Airline Blacklist supposedly has the passport numbers of Official US Enemies and therefore should have been able to get the spelling from Yousouff's UK passport. - to prevent a potential hijacker from hijacking the plane during the descent phase of the flight, in case they're planning to crash it into Washington instead of London, or to reduce the time that the plane is in the air, in case there's a timed-release bomb in the luggage. (Ideally you'd like to prevent them and their luggage from getting on at all, but it was too late for that, and if there's a pressure-triggered luggage bomb you've already lost.) - to maintain the pretense that the people on the list are potential hijackers or airplane suicide bombers, as opposed to people who might sing politically inconvenient music or give talks that encourage other potential US Enemies or give the money to hire other people to do the dangerous bits. - to be extremely conservatively overcautious because you've discovered that you mistakenly let someone on the plane and the version of the Enemies List that you have access to doesn't indicate which people are actively dangerous passengers of the potential hijacker/bomber type, as opposed to political Enemies who you could arrange to harass at Customs after they've arrived, and you don't have the time to find out why they're there before landing (hey, it took Teddy Kennedy three tries), so you throw the Better Safe Than Sorry dice and decide you can spin the PR Fearmongering if you're oversensitive. I'd guess that the working-level decision was the latter conservative knee-jerk, though the decision-makers preferred to think of it as the third case. Conservatism is easier when _you're_ not going to have to pay for the extra airplane costs or deal with the other passengers who miss their airline connections because you stuck them in Bangor, which are somebody else's problem. The entertaining questions are when they figured out that he was the well-known Cat Stevens and not just the generic-Moslem-sounding Mr. Islam, and whether there are pre-defined policies about landing them in Bangor when they ostensibly had enough advance notice to land them in Newfoundland or Labrador instead, which aren't US territory.
participants (2)
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Bill Stewart
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R. A. Hettinga