As many here know, despite flying over 100,000 miles a year, I was put on the (In)Secure Flight list and couldn't check in anywhere other than at the airport, with a CSR, for about the last year.

Much of the conjecture seemed to be that some idiot at TSA had done it to screw with me after calling them out a few times.

Anyway, I've been able to fly my last 2 trips with no problem. No issue with OLCI, can fly with mobile BPs again, etc.

The one thing I can look at is that it seems to have been exactly a year since (In)Secure Flight started creating havoc for me. It makes me think even more that there is a secret way they are using this as a punitive measure for people who tell them to behave themselves. I'm not a conspiracy nut, but this is quite interesting timing.

I did not do the redress process.

What do we all think?

Hanlon's razor states:

A number of possibilities. Perhaps little was known about the person on the watch list that shares your name, so that your date of birth wouldn't disambiguate. But maybe more intelligence became known and that person's date of birth was now known so that yours was therefore known to be different and thus SecureFlight was able to disambiguate. Since I don't think that TSA can add anybody to the watch list, something like the above is the most likely explanation.

1) I can state with quite a reasonable certainty that there is no one out there who shares my first and last name combo.

2) Given that the airlines could add people to the SSSS list, and that flew well under the radar as who knows how many could be retaliated against by rogue CSRs, I would doubt anything that says TSA can add to the (In)Secure Flight list.

I'm going to guess that if you were somehow put on a list a year ago that restricted your checkin, and you think it was exactly a year ago, it's probably a function of a computer somewhere. A year ago, someone marked you as a risk in the computer, and there was an expiry on that record or field in the database. After one year, to the day, the tick automatically came off, and you were free of restrictions again. Pretty stupid, but most databases like this have record or field expirations, it's very standard programming.

Why you ended up with a tick is anyone's guess. It could have been a mistake even. I don't know how or who can access such a database, or where they would do it... finding out how and where access to the database and who has access to modify it would be key to finding out how it happened.

It doesn't need to be exact. Approximate can be enough.

This isn't the same list.

It would really have to be name, gender and DOB I think.*

Actually, it could be the same "list"-- a single database, that is-- and there would be a field which specifies either SSSS or NFL.


*I'm not sure on this, actually, in the case of a name match which might require a redress number in addition to gender and DOB anyway since someone can lie on DOB.

You don't even get to approximate with my name.

Yes, I know that. The point is that if said list could be administered in such a way, there is no reason to believe that this one isn't the same.