sobore

http://www.infozine.com/news/stories...View/sid/8754/

He got 6 million votes when he ran for president in 1980, but John Anderson almost couldn't get on an airline flight to Europe in April because his name was similar to one on the government's watch list for terrorists.


Washington, D.C. - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - infoZine - The former Illinois congressman joins Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska; Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.; and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., all of whom had trouble boarding flights last year for similar reasons.

Spiff

Get rid of these un-American lists!!!

MKEbound

My best friend in college was John Anderson, there is a County Singer named John Anderson, and I work with a guy named Jon Andersen there must be thousands of John Anderson's and Andersen's in the US, and they are all going to get harassed because there name is SIMILAR to some name on a watch list?

Since when did the American way of thinking move from the position that you are innocent until proven guilty?

GUWonder

These blacklists by common names are just one of the problems posed by these unAmerican blacklists.

I am just amazed that Muhammad Ali's name is not yet announced as being on a blacklist. Toss in the spelling variation therein and there must be a few million persons with such name with one of whom having committed some crime somewhere. If this keeps up, then there will be more persons with names on the list than there have ever been terrorists since the beginning of human history.

acregal

The blacklists are very bad news for most people. With a lot of people you have to deal with romanization issues with their names (primarily that there are many different possible spellings for someone's name in another character system).

It is particularly bad for a lot of charities. In order to get money from a lot of organizations (one of the Ford foundations and the government), you have to agree not to employ anyone whose name is on a terror list. The only problem is that it is just a name with no other information and there are thousands of names. I think it was the head of the ACLU whose name was on the list (along with about 30 other people in New York City alone). So instead of making it a pain for people to get on an airplane, it can cost people their jobs .

elpi

All congressman should be on the government watch list of terrorists. They do every thing to destroy USA.

ralfp

From the article:

Our government suspects 13 PERCENT of us (US?) of being terrorists! How many terrorists have we actually caught at airports (and then convicted in a real court of law) since 11.09.01?

13 percent cannot be right. I'd believe that 13 percent of passengers get SSSSuspect treatment.

GUWonder

Would you say that the SSSS label does or does not seem to equate with the government's (and certain government contractors') opinion that those who get the SSSS are more likely to be terrorists than those who don't get the SSSS treatment?

GDIW

Don't forget the Senators and the Supreme Court Judges!

peachfront

My husband's name is about as common or perhaps more common than John Anderson, and he had to go to soft secondary returning from Panama this spring. It added about 45 minutes to clearing customs in IAH. We did make our next flight though because we had a long time between connections. I think I'll just have to allow extra time in future when making connections with him. He can't very well change his name, because he is himself well-known in his field of expertise. by the name he was born with. The staff at IAH was courteous, and they knew he wasn't a bad guy, but apparently they have to go through the procedure anyway.