"Objection, my social security number's privileged."
"What? How so?"
"I talked to this lawyer about it." **points to random lawyer that's waiting in line**

The birth date info will make it harder for George Foreman and his sons to swap around their airline tickets.


Hmmmm, maybe we should do as the Omni thread and have everybody change their name to Spartacus. ;)

Yes, it is.

In an agency known for dumb ideas, this might be the dumbest.

Timmy Terrorist, born 4/8/84, is on the watch list. Now all Timmy has to do is use the first name "Tim" and a birth date of 8/4/84, and POOF!, he's off the watch list.

And what happens to the non terrorist, born 8/4/48, who accidentally enters 4/8/48 for his/her DOB?

Dumb. Supremely dumb. Pretty par for the course for TSA, don't you think?

Thinking.......... nope that's illegal too didn't you know that? Why I found this so outrageous is that it has absolutely NOTHING to do with international security and everything to do with keeping track of citizens. The TSA can't keep track of the data they have..and haven't finished doing background checks on all of the people they are already supposed to be handling. But they are going to add this too? Major mission creep or ? Who knows why but I do know it's a BAD IDEA PERIOD.

That way, they can go to congress and ..... that they don't have enough money. Congress gives them money and Hawley and Chertoff give themselves a raise while they still pay screeners minimum wage and overextend them.

I dislike Kip as much as the next FTer ;) but he and Chertoff cannot give themselves raises. They are paid via the senior exective schedule and cabinet pay tables and that does not change. Travel per diem or others items can be changed but pay cannot.

Ciao,
FH

Since when did the law get in the Bushies' way?

What does "bushies' " mean? Do you mean Bush's...Or is that just an off colour comment in your response?

As for checks on their salary- for one their IRS forms are reviewewd by the US congress yearly.

Ciao,
FH

You know....like the Bush Administration. As for the IRS, just like OCC, FTC, CPSC and congress, it can be paid off.

I know the admin ref-but Bushies ? IS that a bean?

You should take the tin-foil hat off a second...You seem to give the government you dislike so much to much credit. Their is no conspiracy.

The bureaucracy is too large to allow such non-sense. There is too much money to be made post government work to jeopardise that for a few extra dollars now, with all the "conspiracy" work involved to boot.

I have colleagues in this business who quintupled their salary post goverment work as a first year lobbyist. I know the money is much better on this side, having "worked" for the US government, multi-national orgs, state and city governments. These SES and cabinet level folks stand to lose to much later trying to steal a bit of money now via some data mining operation. As bad as the idea is (It is bad, we have similar non-sense in some JAA operations here in Europe) it has no bearing on Kip or Chertoff upping their salary by buying off congress or the IRS- To many career officers of both parties to make it happen anyway.

EDIT- I realise it is the current flavour of the month to say "fire everyone" "TSA" sucks etc etc., but any kickbacks to these folks has to be cash under the table. They cannot up their salary. The US treasury does not work that way. And the whole concept you suggest is basically absurd. I am sure you will want to fire someone now...

Believe it or not, not everyone in the US government is out to get you personally...besides there are bigger fish to fry.

Criticise the program's merits or lack thereof to further the discussion. Provide your view on a solution, other than "firing" everyone, which is not realistic.



Ciao,
FH