Balanced News Blog

Have you ever wondered how the No-Fly List gets constructed? Like the majority of us I assumed that there is an agent that scours intelligence and makes a decision based on a set of criteria that a lot of bespectacled nerds and crumpled suits came up with following the world-shaking events of 9/11. Is that it, though? Are there really people that have a job like that? Who edits it? Who oversees it? Or, is it a computer that makes the list?

It’s been some 4 years since the tragedy that didn’t just affect the USA. A lot of people, and not just us, were complacent and although it seems that the world is full of evil and we have little direction there is something important to remember. Despite all of our jabbering, finger-pointing, blame-placing and yes, childish behaviour: we have NOT been attacked since 9/11 on our soil.

So there’s point one for the No-Fly List right there. President Bush, the people he has gathered to form his team, have prevented another attack. Given that we have heard of several incidents on planes, such as Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, I sometimes think about how many we have not heard of.

But there are times when that list, the No-Fly List, is a source of amusement. Like recently, when a young boy, Edward Allen, was flying on Continental Airlines and turned up on the infamous list. The little boy’s reaction should have given the the Continental Airlines agent a clue:

“I don’t want to be on the list. I want to fly and see my grandma,” the 4-year-old boy said, according to his mother.

Sijollie Allen and her son had trouble boarding planes last month because someone with the same name as Edward is on a government terrorist watch list (the No-Fly Watch List).

The voices are rising in indignation, tongues are already wagging, and the floor is thick with derision about the incompetence and sheer stupidity of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. But before we lambast too much and give another reason for our enemies to make fine propaganda let me again point that out: we have NOT been attacked since 9/11.

The law allows the Continental Airlines agents to disregard such matchings if the person trying to board the plane is a child under 12. And besides that, would an agent want to be known as the guy who called the TSA and authorities over a 4 year old? Clearly the agent used some common sense, although some say they need some common sense, as MSNBC points out:

TSA regional spokeswoman Carrie Harmon said the agency tells airlines not to deny boarding to children under 12 or select them for extra security checks even if their names match ones on the list.

So looking at Edward Allen‘s case, and then comparing it to Jim Moore‘s experience that received attention from The Huffington Post, SeattlePI.com, and AmericaBlog we might think that those agents that make the No-Fly List might just be bits and bytes after all? You might be forgiven for example, for reading more into this if you knew Jim Moore was a vocal Bush administration critic. Is the list maintained by more than chips and number crunching?

This is just one person out of the 35,000 Americans maintained in the No-Fly List. But in a nation of 300 million is that such a lot of people? That’s about .01% of the population give or a take a little bit but according to ACSBlog there are reports of European Governments saying that that list is over 80,000 now. Is that 80,000 total, or 80,000 Americans on the list?

And the boy, Edward Allen? His mother, Sijollie said it took several minutes of pleading and a phone call by the ticket agent to get on the plane to New York. Which of course is the standard procedure, for them to call an 800 number.

Allen, a Jamaican immigrant, said workers at La Guardia Airport were even more hard-nosed before their Dec. 26 flight home. She said a ticket agent told her: “You’re lucky that we’re letting you through instead of putting you through the other process.”

But, they did let them through.

So before we start to question what we are giving up to defend our freedoms, or quote Benjamin Franklin “Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” should remember, Einstein advocated using nuclear weapons to defend the freedoms he enjoyed, and that the freedoms we have temporarily put aside has allowed the security we gained to do their job for four years.

Thanks to SeattlePI.com, MSNBC, and MetaFilter.