Is the US government using the terror suspect list for political purposes?

[rachmaninoff]

Am I the only one who find this ridiculous?

A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air industry sources.

The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051208/pl_afp/usswedenattackstravel

Where are they pulling these names from?

 

[EL]

Just heard it on the news here tonight. You know, you can never be to safe...
Homeland security rules!

 

[edward]

The technology used by the airlines to scan the lists only complicates the problem:

Passengers are falsely flagged by the lists in such large numbers because of the kind of technology airlines use to compare the reservation lists to the watch lists, according to experts in name-matching technology. Each airline conducts the matches differently. Many major carriers use a system that strips the vowels from each passenger's name and assigns it a code based on the name's phonetic sound, according to the Air Transport Association.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/101004B.shtml

It kind of makes me wonder how many millions of dollars are spent making mistakes then correcting them.

 

[Entropy]

I heard people like Cat Stevens are on that list, just because they converted to Islam.

 

[Curious3141]

I heard people like Cat Stevens are on that list, just because they converted to Islam.

I don't actually have any qualms about that. Some converts to Islam do crazy things too. For example the Belgian woman who converted to Islam only to become a suicide bomber. Also, the UK youths involved in the Tube bombings were all born and bred in their victim nation.

While most who convert will follow the peaceful tenets of the faith, there are those who will go psycho and kill in its name. It's almost impossible to predict which category a person falls under without investigation. I'd say Cat Stevens' conversion is big enough to raise a red flag.

 

[Astronuc]

I heard people like Cat Stevens are on that list, just because they converted to Islam.

No, Cat Stevens was denied entry to the US because he allegedly associated with questionable Muslim groups. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3678694.stm

 

[edward]

Hmm So how did Ted Kennedy get on the list??

 

[edward]

MR. Bin Laudin you're clear to fly

It gets worse:

The realization that Osama bin Laden made the cut sent shivers down the spines of airline-security officials who discovered the system gap.
"When the most-wanted man in modern history is not included on the list of possible terrorists there are some serious deficiencies in the system which need to be addressed," says an airport-security official familiar with the test. In fact, Insight has learned from law-enforcement sources that at least two other names of known terrorists cleared security checkpoints when officials punched them into the computer.

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37167

Edit: Come to think of it, since 9/11 would an actual terrorist be stupid enough to try to fly under his real name??

 

[wasteofo2]

Hmm So how did Ted Kennedy get on the list??

Senator Ted Kennedy didn't do anything to be put on the list, but some other random Ted Kennedy did. I don't suppose every random airport security person knows who the senior senator from Mass. is.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

More than likely, due to the higher security, most of those names are just ones that want to track but not necessarily detain as part of their investigations. I'd imagine they probably don't purge the lists of the names that they are no longer interested in very often and there are probably quite a few aliases and names of people that don't necessarily exist.

 

[edward]

Senator Ted Kennedy didn't do anything to be put on the list, but some other random Ted Kennedy did. I don't suppose every random airport security person knows who the senior senator from Mass. is.

They didn't know who he was on five separate occasions.

Sarah Zapolsky and her husband had a similar experience last month while departing from Dulles International Airport outside Washington. An airline ticket agent told them their 11-month-old son was on the government list...

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/15/babies_on_the_nofly_.html

 

[MTyler8]

No fly list

One has to wonder about what makes a person get on the list in the first place. Do you think Pat Robertson, who called for the asassination of a foreign leader, is on the terror suspect list?