<nettime> The War on David Nelson

Fri May 16 22:46:29 PDT 2003

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 at shipwright.com>
>To: Clippable <rah at shipwright.com>
>CC: cypherpunks at lne.com, cryptography at 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 at well.com>
>To: nettime-l at bbs.thing.net
>Sender: nettime-l-request at 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 at 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 at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
>#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net
>
>--- end forwarded text
>
>
>--
>-----------------
>R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at 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