Beware Tiny Tot Terrorists

I heard this story on NPR this morning and it made me laugh. It’s funny because of the ineptness of the whole thing and not because it’s becoming a hassle to people.

I’m all for airport security. I’ve said so in the past — even if I’m inevitably the one watching them take out every single item from my purse to display to the world because the combination of an iPod Mini and a Palm Pilot in one small bag might indicate evil-doing. If it makes me safer in the long run, I’m good. I hate flying as it is, I don’t want to add worrying about terrorists on the plane to my list of worries like plunging from the air and smashing into the ground.

[“Israeli military releases another baby photo(Scarily, this is a real Middle Eastern baby in military garb)”] Anyway, so I heard this story on NPR this morning about children being stopped from boarding planes because their names match or are similar to names from the Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly list. This results in a major hassle as parents are forced to miss flights while trying to have birth certificates, passports, and other identification faxed to the airport security folks.

Critics including the American Civil Liberties Union say the government doesn’t provide enough information about the people on the lists, so innocent passengers can be caught up in the security sweep if they happen to have the same name as someone on the lists. [“Babies Caught Up in ‘No-Fly’ Confusion”]

I think if a child is five or under, he or she is probably not a terrorist…unless maybe it’s that baby from Family Guy. I also think that real terrorists don’t fly under their real names, but that’s just me. Anyway, I think airport security needs to exercise some common sense here — especially since TSA claims they’ve instructed security not to detain anyone under 12. Really, is this too hard to figure out?

The TSA has a “passenger ombudsman” who will investigate individual claims from passengers who say they are mistakenly on the lists. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said 89 children have submitted their names to the ombudsman. Of those, 14 are under the age of 2. [“Babies Caught Up in ‘No-Fly’ Confusion”]

tags: NPR, no-fly list, Transportation Security Administration, ACLU, innocent, Terrorists

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