"Terrorist" watch list stupidity again...

[Mitch Cronin]

http://aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBloc...a-67b910a81233&

Big Brother Is Watching WHO??

Fri, 14 Apr '06

TSA "Terrorist" Turns Out To Be A Homeward-Bound Marine

by ANN Senior Correspondent Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien

The Transportation Security Administration bagged a terrorist in Los Angeles International Airport Tuesday, or so they thought. Daniel Brown's name came up on their no-fly watchlist, so they dragged him into interrogation and grilled him, despite the protestations of Brown and his fellow travelers, who swore they could vouch for him.

The others in Brown's party went on their Northwest Airlines flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul, where they waited on a bus at the airport. You see, the detained man was Staff Sergeant Daniel Brown, USMC Reserve, and he was traveling with the other members of his Marine Reserve Military Police unit, which was heading home to Minnesota from eight months of combat in Iraq. The Marines were in full uniform and all, including Brown, had travel orders and military identification cards.

After attempts to stonewall under claims of "security," TSA spokesmen finally admitted that Staff Sergeant Daniel Brown was placed on the no-fly list, and ultimately detained, because they had detected gunpowder on his footgear -- not on this flight, but on a prior flight, which earned Brown a permanent place on the TSA's mysterious terrorist lists.

The footgear that had been exposed to gunpowder? Brown's combat boots, and the occasion of that flight was after his return from his first combat tour in Iraq. Gee... a combat Marine in Al-Anbar Province being exposed to gunpowder.

Exposure to gunpowder isn't something the TSA knows a lot about. Hey, who are you gonna believe, this here watchlist or your lyin' eyes?

Ultimately, the TSA screeners figured out that Brown really was a Marine, and no threat to his fellow passengers, and let him board a later flight. When he deplaned at MSP, his unit's bus was waiting -- his fellow Marines in it.

Marine 1st Sgt. Drew Benson explained why. "We don't leave anybody behind. We start together, and we finish together." All 26 Marines waited for Brown -- even though their families were waiting for them at a scheduled welcome-home bash at Fort Snelling.

Brown's mother Terry was glad they did. "They all come back together... no matter what it takes and I think that's very important," she told WCCO-TV.

Frequent TSA critic Richard A. Altomare, Founder and Chairman of the Coalition for Luggage Security -- and a former marine -- said, "I'm proud that Sergeant Dan Brown's Marine unit refused to report to their post until the 'man left behind' was permitted to get on a passenger plane. This TSA's bloated bureaucracy with documented insensitive treatment of countless Americans really rings home a need to dismantle their growing airport agency before all American freedoms are lost -- since now even the United States Marines can't help us."

The TSA watch lists are shrouded in such secrecy that it's impossible to tell if they have done any good. The TSA refuses to say how people get on the list or even how many are on. On the other hand, the absurdities of the list have been well publicized.

Senator Ted Kennedy, former child actor David Nelson, and other celebrities have turned up on the list. (TSA explained to Sen. Kennedy that there was a terrorist who once used "T. Kennedy" as an alias. "T" is not one of the Senator's initials; his full name is Edward Moore Kennedy).

Some of our own writers were placed on the list after we ran several Aero-Views critical of TSA management.

In the last few weeks, a DHS official originally recruited by TSA was in the news after being caught in a child sex sting; as Aero-News reported, before joining TSA he took early retirement from Time magazine after a porn scandal there.

Last month, a classified Government Accountability Office report leaked to NBC News reportedly revealed that security testers were able to bring bomb-making materials through TSA security at 21 of 21 airports tested.

But the TSA will not strike its colors; it has not yet begun to fight. Boston TSA head George Naccara told CSO Online, a magazine for security executives, last month that the TSA needed to extend its unique approach to security to other modes of transport: "subway stations, rail terminals, cruise ship and ferry docks, even special events like conventions."

"TSA was never clearly given a mandate to focus only on aviation," Naccara said. "I want to bring a sense of urgency to other modes and explain to them what we do and how it can be adapted to work in their environments."

Meanwhile, does the Marine of the hour have any words? Turns out he does. "As somebody who has served 16 months over in Iraq for the U.S. Marine Corps and come home and get hassled by TSA, it's kind of a major disappointment," Daniel Brown told TV station WCCO. "I've been fighting terrorism for the last 16 months in Iraq. I don't think I should have to come home and deal with this."

Brown's father Carey echoed his son's sentiments. "For an individual who spent two tours over in Iraq fighting for his country, I think it's one of the biggest bogus things they could ever come up with."

WIth luck, no one at TSA will take that as a challenge.

FMI: www.tsa.gov

[dagger]

Not quite a watch list issue, but related: US Homeland Security is forbidding PIA to fly nonstop to the USA - it insists PIA flights transit a third country. Kind of defeats the purpose of acquiring 777-200LRs, which PIA did. Mind you, they have botched even that. They don't have enough 777 certified pilots to provide the necessary augment crews for that flying, so even the Pakistan-Toronto nonstops are being converted back into one-stops via Manchester for the summer.

[Seeker]

Ultimately, the TSA screeners figured out that Brown really was a Marine, and no threat to his fellow passengers...

I'm not sure I'd be so quick to draw that conclusion....

[Innuendo]

ANN Senior Correspondent Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien

TSA brilliance aside, a reporter who posts his material under the moniker of "Hognose" O'Brien ????

You've got to be kidding, but I suppose it makes him easy to remember (for a while anyway)

[Don Hudson]

For anyone who has not yet seen "Good Night and Good Luck", the effort is worthwhile. Please rent the film.

Fear engendered by fundamentalist-religious-right thinking and the ubiquitous "terrorist" who lurks in everyone's mind just around every streetcorner threatens to turn this freedom-loving nation into a new McCarthyist state.

Even academics must now live in fear of their work as "disloyalty" increasingly becomes a part of academic life in the colleges and universities. (In fact, in discussion with a friend, many academics he is aware of are leaving the US for work in Canada to escape "the danger". I won't even comment on the sickening, sycophantic statements by the Conservative's Peter McKay to Secretary of State Rice yesterday. Such prostrated fawning by a representative of a mature and independant country is enough to make one puke).

Macleans is running a front-page story making the statement, "The Worst President in 100 Years?". Clearly even the US Military, through retired Generals, thinks the administration is screwing up the mission in Iraq, widely calling for Rumsfeld's resignation.

The manufacture of fear, the manufacture of consent and the manufacture of a "disloyal citizenry" results in the manufacture of silence. Not much of a democracy.

What a state of affairs!

[CD]

(In fact, in discussion with a friend, many academics he is aware of are leaving the US for work in Canada to escape "the danger".)

...

The manufacture of fear, the manufacture of consent and the manufacture of a "disloyal citizenry" results in the manufacture of silence. Not much of a democracy.

What a state of affairs!

May not be much better here in the near future...

Novelist scientist silenced as Harper Tories quietly axe 15 Kyoto programs

Harper restricts ministers' message

In Harper's tightly scripted government, loose lips sink careers

[Don Hudson]

CD;

Re

May not be much better here in the near future...

I wrote before this government was elected that there is a great risk in making too close a "friend" of the US. The Harper government has shown that it is quick to roll over and is presently on its back, tail wagging; Yesterday's performance by McKay confirmed that. It is a very popular position to take with most of the electorate because they like "strong secrecy", being friends with a mighty ally, and a leader who seems a very decent, polite, slightly awkward persona that knows his mind (but isn't willing to tell anyone what's on it). Such naive acceptance may be appropriate for a parent and child but it does a disservice to promises of a democracy.

The "benefits" of Mr Harper's approach to governing will be both great and obvious in economic and political terms; - Until the first time Canada tries to assert our so-called sovereignty of, for example, the North, or over our water or oil resources.

With the US, there is no such thing as friendship; there is only obedience. With "good" friends like Canada, obedience comes in the guise of "international relations" and diplomatic language but the underlying intent is clear; the US has been ruled against, using their own (NAFTA) rules, 100% of the time on softwood. We are still waiting for the money.

Axing Kyoto, like axing Brazil and Cairo, is-was a US priority because the cost to business (ie CEOs) is too high to permit any environmental thinking to get traction. Canada, being a good "friend", will as we have already seen, follow, largely without comment. With political life "in hand", intellectual life cannot be long in following.

[Guest rattler]

Don:

Appears that Joe Public likes what Harper is doing.

Latest poll as conducted by the Strategic Counsel for the Globe & Mail & CTV

39% polled would vote Conservative if the election was held now, the Liberals were the choice of 29 per cent of respondents polled between April 6 and 9. The New Democrats dropped to 14 per cent from the 19 per cent they held in February, and the Bloc Québécois got a slight bump to 11 per cent from 9 per cent.

2/3 of those polled liked / agreed with the priorities set by the Conservative Government.

Full Article

This favorable support was also shown in a poll conducted by Decima Research.

Results of Decima Research Poll

So it seems only the press, some Liberals and of course most NDPs don't like what our new government is doing.

[Don Hudson]

rattler;

Re,

Appears that Joe Public likes what Harper is doing.

Oh, absolutely...I agree. Harper is seen as a "breath of fresh air" after arrogant Liberal rule, corruption, tired ideas, no accountability and enormous waste of public funds. I think it is healthy that this haughty group is relegated to the other side of the floor.

Remember, they, and we, are still on the honeymoon. But Harper has some genuinely interesting ideas and we'll see how well he and his government implement them. And its always better to be friends with a powerful force accustomed to getting its own way all the time...that's just plain good political sense and of course, very popular.

But let us be cautious about being drawn in by the illusion that this friendship is a two-way street. Of course it is complex and subtle but how it goes will always suit the US. Compliance, not defiance is what works. The US is pleased with Canada again because we have signalled to Washington that we "know our place". We'll see what its like in a year. Independance is far costlier than compliance. Very few Canadians liked Chretien in the end but even fewer disagreed with his flat-out "no" to Canada's participation when the US unilaterally invaded Iraq. Canada was "disciplined" in a number of economic and political ways including the BSE matter.

I know the relationship is already enormously beneficial given our trade status with the US but that has existed more or less constantly for decades and decades. In the end I truly hope the Conservative overtures yield a relationship of mutual respect...not merely the polite diplomatic kind but real mutual respect. History is unkind to such expectations but again suspending judgement in favour of curiosity is perhaps the stance right now. If Canada defends its claim to the North, if Harper (or McKay) resolves the softwood lumber issue, if our beef industry is left untroubled by any single non-threatening case of BSE, then perhaps we will have our signals that there is some measure of reciprocity in store.

I think that the Canadian media is not at all cantankerous and lets Ottawa off far too easily, (although I notice Canwest, the only owner of a number of newspapers in every major city in Canada, is growing slightly more aggressive than they were with the Liberals). The US media is so insular as to be essentially a mirror of US policies rather than any kind of an independant critical voice.

I know these ideas are as old as the hills and are even hackneyed by now. George Grant wrote about them decades ago in the Massey Lectures. Kennedy's contempt for Diefenbaker was legendary, (not that I blame him...). Doesn't mean they've grown irrelevant and not worth examining, however.

[Guest rattler]

Don: keeping on the good side of the US is like sleeping with a hibernating grizzly. You don't want to wake either of them up. The list of folks who made that mistake is large.

Anyone who thinks that the US will not look after #1 first is a dreamer. You only have to take a close look at the soft wood timber dispute to understand that the US will not pay any attention to any judgement (no matter the court) that removes their "edge". We will only be able to settle that one, if we are willing to give something else up.

The day may come, and I hope not soon, when we will tell the US that they can not have our water or other resources. The day that happens we may find the flags on our flagpoles have been changed overnight.

[YYC I/C]

The manufacture of fear, the manufacture of consent and the manufacture of a "disloyal citizenry" results in the manufacture of silence. Not much of a democracy.

Never mind democracy.....not much for liberty.

[Don Hudson]

rattler;

Re,

The list of folks who made that mistake is large.

We'll see how Chavez does over the next few years. US influence in Latin and South America isn't what it once was when Chile was economically and politically invaded with Pinochet implanted as the "Chicago Boys' " (and Milton Friedman's) favourite (among many other Latin American examples). Venezuela has enormous resources as we know and this lends Chavez a courage which he might otherwise ill afford. There is a good article in April's National Geo on Chavez.

[W5]

Analysis: How the US 'lost' Latin America

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4861320.stm

[W5]

In regards to Chavez (NYT articles published in the IHT):

Chávez using oil money to buy influence abroad

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/04/news/venezuela.php

Caracas calling: A new mecca for the left

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/21/news/venezuela.php