I have the dubious distinction of being on the No-Fly List, so I admit my bias against it up front. The Transportation Security Agency (TSA) has a so-called "mythbuster" on its website. One myth the list supposedly "busts": that there is an 8-year-old boy on the no-fly list. It would be more aptly called "fact-buster."
Embarrassingly for TSA, the New York Times interviewed Mikey Hicks, age 8, and his parents, and they explained the ridiculous ordeals - such as Mikey being violently frisked - they must endure just to go on vacation. Why? Because Mikey shares a name with someone on the "selector" watchlist.
As frustrating as it is to read about innocent children being manhandled on the family vacation, it is downright scary to imagine who might be slipping through security while TSA is frisking little Mikey. Unfortunately, we don't have to stretch our imaginations too far. The "underwear bomber" waltzed aboard a plane with no problem.
The short of it is: these long watchlists simply do not work.
The number of "watchlists" within our intelligence and homeland security agencies, TSA, FBI, etc, is staggering, but seems small compared to the number of people on these lists.
While TSA tries to comfort us with its new favorite statistic - that only 2,500 names are on the No-Fly List -- there are some 13,000 names on the "selectee" watchlist -- 8-year-old Mikey is lucky enough to be on the latter, as am I. In the past three years alone, some 81,000 people have attempted to remove themselves from the various lists. (I am one of them.) The ACLU estimates that the watchlists have over a million names. The The DOJ Inspector General said that some 35% of the names on the FBI's list were outdated. And who can forget the 12 "Robert Johnson's" on the No-Fly list who appeared on 60 minutes?
Worse, once an innocent person is on a watchlist, it is practically impossible to get his or her name off of it. There have been numerous incarnations of DHS's "Traveler Redress Inquiry Program." According to DHS itself, DHS's "Traveler Redress Inquiry Program" doesn't even work.
The result is that innocent people on watchlists, myself included, are singled out for privacy-invading and humiliating screenings for no legitimate reason. Worse, we don't even have to quote Ben Franklin to defend our liberties here because we are not giving them up for any "temporary security." If recent events teach us anything, it is that these bloated watchlists afford us no security, temporary or otherwise.