Friday, July 20, 2007

The No-Fly Terrorist List, National Security, and Sanity

Dateline, Kansas City, Missouri.

Common sense? No common sense here!

An 8-year-old boy has a name that's on a terrorist no-fly list. That's why, when he arrived at the airport in Cortez, Colorado, he was told "We cant get you on this plane, you're a terrorist." The whole weird story is on the Kansas City FOX 4 website: Metro 8-Year-Old Shows Up On No-Fly Terrorist List

Happily, an investigation determined that the preteen Tom Sawyer lookalike was not a dangerous terrorist: but not before the kid missed his plane.

"It's not really fair that I couldn't get home because another man in the world was a terrorist," he said, displaying a degree of wisdom and insight that I sincerely wish would be displayed more often in adults. Some days, I'd settle for a little common sense.

The Transportation Security Administration says that there aren't any children on the terrorist watch list: under the circumstances, that statement isn't all that reassuring.

This latest example of a security system with zero tolerance for sanity raises a real concern. While airport security was busy protecting travelers from an 8-year-old kid, how much attention was being paid to people who might be real terrorists?

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