I'm flying from DCA to MIA this evening with two friends, both of whom have fairly common Arabic names.

Since they're fairly inexperienced flyers, I just went to aa.com to check them in. I logged in under the AAdvantage frequent flyer accounts I created for them before helping them buy their tickets, and sure enough got the message "We are unable to check you in. Please see an agent at the airport ticket counter."

Looks like an SSSS fest for the two of them, and the SSSS flag seems unlikely to be random since they're on two separate PNRs. The likelihood of both of my friends being randomly selected should be quite slim. And there's no "suspicious" ticketing behavior going on, either. Both of their tickets are round trips purchased several weeks in advance with credit cards, and I made sure that their FF numbers were entered prior to ticketing.

So I have a gut feeling that both of my friends' common Arabic names (each has a different surname) may match that of someone on the terrorist watch list. We'll see what happens once we get to DCA, though it's possible the agent won't feel at liberty to tell us whether they're on "the list" or not for "security" reasons.

Fortunately I'm flying on a different airline and have already printed my BPs online, so I don't expect to be haraSSSSed just by virtue of my association with my two unlucky friends.

I'll keep everyone posted on their progress once we all clear the checkpoint (separately!) tonight.