Fixing the No Fly List
We all know the complete mess this is — millions of names long, many people (including little kids) on it who can’t find a way off of the list, and a government agency who can put your name on it, but has no real way of getting your name off of it. Two pieces of news:
- Analysis of the costs of creating and maintaining this list has been done and:
As will be analyzed below, it is estimated that the costs of the no-fly list, since 2002, range from approximately $300 million (a conservative estimate) to $966 million (an estimate on the high end). Using those figures as low and high potentials, a reasonable estimate is that the U.S. government has spent over $500 million on the project since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Using annual data, this article suggests that the list costs taxpayers somewhere between $50 million and $161 million a year, with a reasonable compromise of those figures at approximately $100 million.
- The House passed HR 559:
The bill would require the Homeland Security secretary to establish a “timely and fair” process of appeal and redress for people wrongly delayed or prevented from boarding a flight, among other things, because of an erroneous match with a terrorist watch list.
The study doesn’t look to consider enough of the costs to passengers who are mistakenly on the list, but we are clearly spending alot of money for a much too large list. $100 million dollars per year that could be spent in really clearing these names or even getting the real terrorists behind bars, rather than just defaulting to the TSA to keep you off of a plane. If these people really were terrorists, they could certainly be working on some non-plane plan, you know? The legislation to get the TSA to give passengers a real process by which to get off of the list passed with 3 (?) no votes. It is pretty incredible that this would actually take an act of Congress, but there you are.
Tags: Homeland Insecurity
We’re always fighting the last war. I know conservatives think that the al Qaeda terrorists have superpowers or something (OMG, they might be in prison in Kansas!) but they used a low tech method of causing a lot of damage. So far they’ve used box cutters, car bombs and suicide bombs to cause mass panic and destruction. I’m not sure how we protect against low tech things like that. Probably the biggest safety factor we added after 9/11 was reinforced cockpit doors.
The no-fly list is a joke and a waste of money right now. So far, all we’ve done (it looks like) is deny flight to Cat Stevens. We need more of the behavior-based screening (like the people who denied would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid twice and stopped the LAX bomber at the Canadian border).
Dismantle the entire agency NOW! The OHS is a MAJOR joke. And misuse of the word ‘terror’ in all its forms is a scare tatic that no longer provokes the desired response from 51% of Americans.
If you want to talk about terror you need only look to Pheonix Az. This city, dear to Sen. McCain, has the highest kidnapping rate in the ‘new world’…..second only to Mexico City. That’s right they had over 300 kidnappings last year. People are held for $$$$ ransom. The perps?…… Mexican drug lords.The solution?……. Who knows; not the local constabulary that’s for certain.
We need to focus on ourselves and our surroundings to achieve some level of ‘security’.
For years I’ve been telling those close to me: “You can run but you can not hide. It’s everywhere, it’s everywher. Stand up and stand ready, with solutions to make needed changes.”
That is all. Thank you.
If Obama had even one ball in his jockeys he would scrap the Department of Fatherland Security and banish any such terminology from ever being uttered in the halls of government.
The whole thing is a nightmarish Bushian post-9/11 fear-peddling abomination.
But then, it sure got some of that direly-needed fatass ‘stimulus’ cash for its new HQ, eh?
Same old same old, with a shiny new leader.