Clipped Wings -- Airport Security and the "No Fly List"

Photo by Paul Heasman. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)

They say you should arrive at the airport and hour and a half before boarding for a domestic flight. That gives you time to clear security, find your gate, and mortgage your house to buy a sub-standard cheeseburger from the airport café. The airlines used to recommend just an hour for those activities, but since 9/11 the security people have been understandably jumpy and the obligatory x-ray radiation dose and full body cavity search take longer now.

I don't mind – reasonable and prudent security measures and all that.

So when I flew out to the celebration of my cousin's¹ fiftieth wedding anniversary in Los Angeles, I budgeted ninety minutes or so for the Transportation Security Administration check my luggage and person for potentially lethal weapons: like fingernail clippers and hair conditioner.

I've flown a lot recently – to Philadelphia to meet what my wife calls my "internet friends," and to New York for a panel on the role of users as editors in social media – so I probably should have suspected something was amiss when the US Airways web check-in application unceremoniously rejected my registration request.

"We can not process your check in at this time."

I got the same brusque treatment at early o'clock from the check-in kiosk at the Charlotte airport and was advised, in no uncertain terms, that I should speak to one of the airline's "agents."

"You're on the no fly list."

Some news, the TSA apparently thinks, should be delivered in person.

At least I'm in good company. Ted Kennedy – United States Senator or otherwise - was reportedly flagged for additional harassment by the TSA shortly after the institution of the list. A further smattering of unlikely suspects from grandmothers to infants have been likewise interrogated and processed in the ongoing war on "people who monopolize in-flight lavatories" and "infants who cry on airlines."

"No one is really sure how the list works," the agent commented as I handed over my driver's license. "My name is on it some weeks, others it's not." He furrowed his brow and typed furiously for a moment. "We were told the system was temporary when they put it in, that we'd have something more effective and more permanent eventually, but nothing ever came of it." The poor guy seemed a little put out by the situation; apparently he has to juggle people through this routine pretty regularly.

He handed my license back. US Airways, confidant that I am not an Islamic Jihadist, was going to let me board my flight.

It turns out my driver's license is what cleared me. The "no fly list" is bureaucracy at its most absurd. It is nothing more than a catalog of the individuals that the TSA will not allow to board an aircraft. Names, dates of birth: all sorts of information is on that list, but it only takes a partial name match to flag a passenger as a potential threat.

To "clear" such a "false positive" the airlines just compare middle names against the list, birthdates, or some other bit of identifying information, typically something they can pull off of a drivers license or some other standard bit of ID.

Because when it comes to fabricating an identity, the resources of your average international terrorist organization apparently pale next to those of an underage college student.

In fact, it is very hard to see most of the post 9/11 airport security measures as anything more than a shallow attempt to make passengers feel safer without actually making them secure.

Random bag searches are great and there is quite a lot to be said for turning up the sensitivity on the metal detectors and sending laptops through the scanner. But X-raying shoes, restricting liquids, and confiscating innocuous items like nail clippers and cigarette lighters? So many of the policies enacted by the TSA border on the patently ridiculous.

Ben Franklin famously opinioned that those who would trade liberty for temporary security deserve neither. That phrase has been a watchword for the numerous critics of the American security state since 9/11, but what the United States has done with air travel defies even Mr. Franklin's most pessimistic of presumptions.

We have traded liberty for inconvenience and the illusion of security.

Once safely aboard, I stowed my luggage, found my seat, and closed my eyes. A little shut-eye might make up for my lost sleep and early departure. As US Airways flight 1433 cleared the Great Smokey Mountains I dropped off. What could possibly go wrong?

1. Actually my mother's first cousin on her mother's side. What does that make us?

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