The scary part is the spokesperson at the end seems to imply this or similar has happened before.
They got my elderly father when he was under medical care, incoherent due to drugs, and in a wheelchair. It took a lot of argument to be able to get him on an internal US flight where he was being escorted by his son and wife. That was in 2006. Some terrorist he was. So they don’t (or didn’t) review them frequently.
So in other words, he wasn’t on the watch list. Or do you really think that he was on the list, but you made such a stellar argument that the TSA agent said “Well, I’m not supposed to do this, but you’re just so charming…” and let him on the plane?
What happened to your father in no way sheds light on how often they review the watchlist. What people don’t understand is that the TSA neither confirms nor denies if you’re being stopped because you’re on the watchlist. So people assume automatically that they are, when in reality, there are less than 1,000 US citizens on the list and <10,000 foreigners.
In 2007, there was a massive scrub due to new criteria for entry onto the watchlist and thousands of names were removed.
Which 1000’s of names were those? Is there a cite listing them as proof? Or just a press release asserting it?
Too late to edit, but I want to mention the DHS TRIProgram. Also, here’s at least one blog mentioning the watchlist scrub from 2007. And in the section on Secure Flight, the TSA has this to say.
What do I look like, Wikileaks? No, there’s no cite that I know of listing the names. And if there were, I highly doubt it’d be released to the general public.
OK, so just a press release. That’s how I remembered it too.
So are you suggesting that they didn’t actually scrub the list? If so, what cite can you provide for this, other than your suspicions?
No, that is not what I am suggesting at all. I am suggesting that we have no knowledge at all about this “list” other than what is asserted in this and other press releases, the source of which, as was statged, has vested interest in keeping the list mysterious.
I have some knowledge of data mining and statistical classification techniques, although no specific experience with the “no fly list” or data used to compile it. My feeling is, based on the stories, press releases, analyses I have read over the year is that there never was a list per se, but rather an algorithm. At the point in question, the algorithm was fine tuned, replaced, or its parameters otherwise adjusted so that the correct classification was more likely to happen for everyone.
No secrets there, it is how search engines such as google work, they adjust those factors all the time. But there is not really a list of what input results in a list of what output.
As I said, that is speculation on my part, but it seems the more likely way to do it than keep a hard list of everyone, with either a check mark or not next to it, to be adjusted every 5 years or so.
I would like to point out that no one was going to give her the benefit of the doubt. Immigration is handled in Pakistan by theFIA who are also the lead Federal Anti-Terror agency… Who have been attacked. Multiple times. So the FIA dude at the terminal (who probably spends a lot of time thanking God that he does not have Anti-Terror duty and it stays that way) is going to see, “on a UK terror list”, “sorry” go home.
Wives aren’t terrorists.
You can negotiate with terrorists.
I’m wondering why the article linked in the OP doesn’t name this immigration official.
Under going investigation probably. They will wait until charges are filed.
I seemed to recall a rather curiously proud announcement by the TSA when the list hit some number a great deal larger than what you suggest. I have not found that announcement, but supporting evidence says the list is much, much larger.
Here is a 2008 Wash Times article quoting DHS head Michael Chertoff stating that one airline is reporting 9000 false positive hits on the no-fly list every day. I don’t see how that’s possible if the list has less than 11,000 total names. Also, from the same article “The Terrorist Screening Center announced April 10 it will automatically review nearly 500,000 names on its watch list that are frequently matched during airport screenings”. So half a million are “frequently matched”!
Peter Neumann in comp.risks 25.15 puts the list size at over 900,000 names and notes that “TSA estimates that 15,000 people have actually managed to get their own names off the list, although the process is reportedly “frustratingly slow”.”