Just what I was afraid of. Even worse than the "Big Brother" scenario (where a giant, hyper-evil and hyper-intelligent KGB runs the place) is a sea of minimum wage incompetants now hyper-empowered with secret lists and locally infinite authority. This isn't the fascist utopia I thought I was buying into. Time for the meathooks... -TD

From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com> To: Clippable <rah@shipwright.com> CC: cypherpunks@lne.com, cryptography@metzdowd.com Subject: <nettime> The War on David Nelson Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 21:42:37 -0700

--- begin forwarded text

Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 12:40:30 -0500 Subject: <nettime> The War on David Nelson From: Bruce Sterling <bruces@well.com> To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net Sender: nettime-l-request@bbs.thing.net

*Imagine if these wretches had the even more common name "Geert Lovink." Really, one shudders to think -- bruces

If your name is David Nelson you can expect to be hassled, delayed, questioned and searched before being allowed to board aircraft anywhere in the United States for the foreseeable future.

Since the horrific attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the federal Transportation Security Administration has, without any public announcement, created a two-tiered list of names "to protect our aviation system," says Nico Melendez, the agency spokesman for the West Coast, who is based in Los Angeles.

The name David Nelson apparently is on one of those lists.

"There is a 'no-fly' list," he says. "That's people who cannot fly, period, " because they've been determined to be or are suspected of being "a threat to civil aviation or to national security."

Details about the list are "considered sensitive security information and cannot be released to the public," Nico says, but the Wall Street Journal suggests there are about 300 names on the "no-fly" list.

There's another list that Nico calls the "selectees list." Might as well call them "suspectees." This is a much larger list of names, accumulated, Nico says, from information obtained from intelligence agencies and the airlines. These folks may be allowed to fly but only after they're intensely scrutinized by airline, law enforcement and security personnel.

People whose names are on the two lists undergo what is not a routine security screening, in which you're asked to remove your shoes or empty your pockets. This week 18 men named David Nelson, all residents of Oregon, confirmed they have been repeatedly delayed at airport counters and security checkpoints in the last year or so.

Take the February experience of Dave Nelson of Salem, a lobbyist whose largest client is the Oregon Seed Council. Dave often travels for business, sometimes accompanying the governor on trade missions. "We were on our way to a trade show in Atlanta," Dave says, "trying to use the auto-check-in for baggage. We punched in our information, and the computer wouldn't accept it."

Dave and his wife, Leah, stood in line until an agent was available at the Delta counter. "We gave him our info, and he kept punching on his computer for about 10 or 15 minutes. . . . Then he says, 'I have to go in the back room.' He took off, and we stood there another 10 minutes. I asked L1 another clerk to find out where he'd gone."

After more waiting, they were told a supervisor was being sought. "Nobody would tell us what was going on," Dave says. "It's been 30 or 35 minutes by now. Finally the guy came out and said, 'You'll have to talk to the cop behind you.' We turned around, and there's a security guy." Dave says the officer told him there was a list of suspicious people, "and you're on the list."

Dave was asked for I.D. and turned over his driver's license. "They called downtown and ran a criminal check, and I was clean. Then the counter clerk had to call national Delta and get permission for me to go on the airplane. We were now pretty close to takeoff time." Dave and his wife were issued tickets, but again at the gate Dave was thoroughly frisked, searched and identified.

At the airport in Atlanta on the way back, the same thing happened. "The woman punched in my name and said, 'Oh, no, Mr. Nelson . . .' "

One after another, local David Nelsons tell the same story: At airports their bags are put through bomb detectors; they are delayed, searched, questioned.

David Nelson of Gresham says he was searched and screened three times at the Portland airport, then again at the gates of Dallas and Atlanta airports before arriving in Savannah, Ga., last month. "It's as if they think you've been transformed into a terrorist en route. You'd think one screening was enough, when you haven't left a secure area the entire trip."

"What really concerned me," says David Nelson of Northwest Portland, who recently was delayed trying to fly to Juneau, Alaska, to take care of his mother, "was even when they determined I wasn't the one on the list, it's like I had a label on my forehead that says, 'One must frisk this person at every opportunity and go through his luggage.' It's as if I were a pariah. " David had no idea why he was being singled out; no one mentioned a list. "My son is a pilot for Continental; I thought maybe that had something to do with it."

Oregon state Sen. David Nelson, from Pendleton, also had no idea why he was being delayed at airports. "Then we flew into the Medford airport on Horizon, and one of the agents said, 'Your name is on the list. You're going to be checked every place you go.' That was a shock."

As David Nelsons all over the country have learned, once your name is on the list, there's no way you can get it removed. Every time you go to an airport, you're assumed to be guilty until you can prove yourself innocent.

Dave Nelson, the Salem lobbyist, spent a lot of time making phone calls after his trip to Atlanta, trying to learn how he could avoid the security hassles. "I thought I'd seen something on the news that you could get a pre-clearance, a photo I.D. We called the Port, and they knew nothing. I called the FBI and went up the ranks, and there's nothing like that. You're just stuck. I said, 'What if I used my full name, or just an initial?' They said, 'None of that would make a difference. You're on the list.' "

Somewhere in the world there's an actual terrorist suspect named David Nelson who started all this mess. Several David Nelsons have been told by security or airline personnel that he's from Nashville.

But they're looking for him everywhere. Portland radiologist David Nelson "never could figure out why I was constantly getting flagged. Our bags would always come back with tape around them, saying they had been searched." His son and namesake, David Wesley Nelson, who's 27, thought he was always stopped "because of my age." When he flew to Los Angeles recently, "they gave me a big hassle because I didn't have a passport. I said, 'I don't normally carry a passport when traveling within the U.S.' "

Every single David Nelson interviewed understood the need for greater security in a post Sept. 11 world. They realize there are trade-offs between liberty and security. But in today's world of high-tech wizardry, it's hard to believe the Transportation Security Administration can't come up with a computer software program that would create a "free-to-fly" list of people whose I.D. has been checked and whose innocence already has been verified.

The problem is not the "no-fly" list or the "selectees" list. The problem is, once you're on the lists, you can't get off. It's one thing to know you have to get to the airport three or four hours before every flight; the David Nelsons might accept that as a sign of the times. But how would you feel, knowing your name was on a government terrorist watch list?

Linda Nelson of Tigard says her husband, David Nelson, has been hassled in airports. "You're treated as a second-class citizen in your own country," she says.

David Nelson is a common name. "My dentist has a couple of them in his practice," says David Nelson of Aloha, "and my boss is actually named David Nelson. He's had the same thing happen to him."

Nico Melendez of the Transportation Security Administration will not confirm that the name David Nelson is on the "no-fly" or "selectees" list. But he does say that people who want to see if their name is on either list or who want to make a complaint, can call the agency's contact center at 866-289-9673 or send an e-mail to TellTSA@tsa.dot.gov.

But if your name is David Nelson, chances are you won't breeze through any airports in the near future. Even if you're a celebrity.

Remember Ozzie and Harriet's son, David Nelson? "I got stopped at the John Wayne Airport" in Orange County, Calif., he said by phone from Los Angeles this week. "Two police officers knew who I was and tried to explain to the guy behind the security desk. It didn't faze him at all." Even as another officer was saying he had once met David's mother, Harriet, David was being instructed to remove his shoes, he says. "I asked, 'Does the guy on the list have a middle name of Ozzie?' He said, 'It just says David Nelson.' "

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/margie_boule/index.ssf?/base/living /1051877124142830.xml

# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net

--- end forwarded text

-- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

_________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus