Abhi posted a link on our news tab to a story about…well, stupidity. Way to focus on the fine print, while actual, credible threats go unchecked.
For seven-year-old Javaid Iqbal, the holiday to Florida was a dream trip to reward him for doing well at school.
But he was left in tears after he was stopped repeatedly at airports on suspicion of being a terrorist.
The security alerts were triggered because Javaid shares his name with a Pakistani man deported from the US, prompting staff at three airports to question his family about his identity.
The family even missed their flight home from the U.S. after officials cancelled their tickets in the confusion. And Javaid’s passport now contains a sticker saying he has undergone highlevel security checks.
Little Javaid is a British citizen of Pakistani origin, which makes his “dream” of going to Florida-land as a reward for his good grades even more poignant, to me. The other Javaid is a 39-year old Pakistani who was arrested in connection with 9/11; while they convicted that Javaid of fraud and deported him, he was never charged with anything related to terrorism. His name, obviously, is a red flag for the exquisitely useful database/process which Homeland Security created…you know, the one which apparently doesn’t bother cross-checking birthdays in order to discern the difference between two or more people who share a name.
Because of this cluster, Javaid’s parents are debating a name-change for their unfortunately-nomenclated* offspring, and I don’t blame them, though I can only imagine how frustrated and resentful they might be. September 12, 2001…the day common sense commenced its slow and horrific death.
I found the reactions from people who had read the article interesting. Illuminating, even.
Said Craig from London:
Poor kid, my passport was mistakenly stamped with the incorrect stamp when transiting though Australia a few years back, the immigration bloke realised it and crossed out the initial stamp and re-stamped it correctly but I still often get asked “why were you refused entry to Australia” when going through immigration. Still if simply changing your name is enough to bypass the system it shows how utterly pointless the US no-fly list is.
Said THIS whiner winner from our good ole country:
Sorry his family is feeling “alienated.” This is post-9/11 reality. I feel alienated from air travel, too, when I’m frisked, questioned and forced to remove my shoes, belts, etc. just to board a plane. Questioning the whole family in this case was perfectly reasonable. The kid had the same name as someone who committed passport fraud. It was not unreasonable to consider the possiblity that this kid’s and his parents’ papers were fraudulent.
I also question the choice of T-shirt he is wearing in the picture. I wouldn’t wear a t-shirt that read “Armed and Ready” when travelling via airplanes, or when I was talking to the press about how unfairly I was treated.
– Thomas, Indiana, United States
My initial response to “Thomas” was a hearty “STFU”, but that has been drowned out by the roaring chorus of, “America…F*ck yeah!“
*Yeah, I know. It’s not a real word. Don’t get your chuddies all bunched, yaar.
what if somehow “John Smith” enters the no-fly list ?
thast when the system gets improved. wouldnt want to harass whyte people..
I wonder which political crony got the contract to do the database. Seriously, it is not that tough to have included birthdates.
All this loss of freedom and extreme inconvenience will save how many lives???? More people get killed in regular car accidents, yet many people don’t bother to follow seat belt laws(including yours truly). But if one dies in a terrorist thing, it is the end of the world. The terrorists have won when we live in such fear. I personally would love to get on an airplane with their own separate lines where we can sign a “OK to shoot down my plane in case of a hijacking” waiver.
i think political cronyism is a viable career option for me…
The other solution is don’t go to America. Plenty of mates – not just Muslim – are doing their best to avoid going there whenever possible.
anyone think the situation will improve concerning internatinla relations and american government behavior once the current administration is over?
Scary 7 year olds, the new face of terrorism. Are people that scared!! 7 YEAR OLD. For pete’s sake!
As chris rock said, “I’m not afraid of al qaeda, I’m afraid I’ll CRAKKA!!
“The other solution is don’t go to America. Plenty of mates – not just Muslim – are doing their best to avoid going there whenever possibleâ€.
Many mates of mine too are doing the same thing, which is a really sad thing.
He’ll join “Robert Johnson“.
Plent of non-brown Americans are on the no-fly list for a variety of reasons.
I feel so bad for the kid and wtf about the logo his t-shirt, he’s 7 for heaven’s sake!!
Even with a green card, just recently my husband had to go go to that ‘back room’ when we were coming back from Mexico due to his non American passprt and we’ve missed our flight back to JFK . We ended up taking a much later flight back to La Guradia and had to pay for a taxi home as the car was in KFK. There is no concern whatsoever for any delays or anything by the immmigration people when they hold you up. there is no way to even notify the airlines of your status and if you’re in a trnasit city it is just so stressful if no flights are available that day.
I also have many Brits both Muslim and non Muslim, all races who just can’t be bothered with the fingerprinting, and bearucracy that the US now has and therefore avoid travelling here.
If the USA removes the visa wiaver for EU countries,(as suggested by some senators) occurs then the tourist industry will suffer a lot and US citizens travelling to EU will be affected too.
A seven year old ! ! ! My head cannot hit the desk hard enough. Our country is doomed if this is the best our crack team of airplane security experts can do…
wouldnt want to harass whyte people..
Just to be totally anal and pedantic, two aunts of mine, of Irish extraction, share a name with some IRA bomber who’s also on the no-fly list. They were still eventually allowed to fly back and forth to Europe though.
My name is on some sort of “triple check this guy before you let him on a plane” list and it is annoying as hell. I noticed it after I saw a message pop up on the check in counter computer “ALERT: THIS PASSENGER NEEDS ADDITIONAL SCREENING!!”
I can never use any sort of curb side check in or online check in or any computer service at the airport to get my boarding pass and after googling my name I can thank the many Sikh terrorist that share my name for making my atheist life hell at the airport.
its good that my name is oddly spelt. that way, the ony people with my last name are my cousins, aunts, uncles, nuclear family.
Funny you should say that, my former boss was named G. Smith. His name was on the no fly list (his first name is very common, too) and EVERYTIME he flew, he had to check in at the desk. He couldn’t print his boarding pass online since the airline systems prevented him from doing so. This was despite him being a life long government employee who maintained a security clearance.
So this kid was 1 year old when he helped plan 9/11? Kids are growing up so much faster these days…
i think i was still $hittin’ my self at 1y. HAHAH!
ha ha, A lot of southie surnames have various spellings. I cant get people to get it right even after I flash my badge!
i wonder how if barack obama …get confused for osama bin landen by Homeland Security
Isn’t that what happened to Ted Kennedy?
No, you can thank a flawed and imperfect attempt at security policy on the part of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. Let’s give credit where credit is due.
Alright, we need to have a re-naming ceremony for this kid now…
Javaid is now known as …
Koolaid?
Foshizzle Ramamurthy
Clearly you guys don’t spend enough time around kids to know what they’re really capable of.
Before I read this blog entry, I never knew there existed a first name like ‘Javaid’, all I’ve heard is ‘Javed’. Google knows 363,000 Javaids and 2,080,000 Javeds!
I think a simple solution is to document all the muslim names in the world and every new muslim child born will have a unique name. They can take a cue from us and add maybe 26 initials before the same. Now if he was called ‘ Q W E R T Y U I O P A S D F Javaid Iqbal’ would he have had such issues. After all we in America need our
protectionfreedom.I’m always amazed when people defend the sheer stupidity of the TSA by claiming that victims of profiling ‘should have known better.’ The facts are simple: 1) Up until recently, the no-fly list was confidential 2) The process of determining a threat has still not been explained, and is often highly flawed 3) The TSA screeners themselves are often inept, and in some cases downright criminal
America. F*** yeah.
The TSA seems to have it in for kids these days :8-year-old on no fly list 12 Year Old Boy: TSA Stole My Birthday Money . Maybe one day they’ll actually catch a terrorist. Wouldn’t bet on it though.
Let’s assign each kid a GUID!
Wow. That’s just outrageous.
Anybody else thinking about this in relation to the trend in Florida of arresting small (almost always black) children for having tantrums, fighting, and generally doing kid stuff? It just seems like black and brown kids are being criminalized before they’re even old enough to have any idea what that means. Scary.
Yikes, for some reason that link isn’t working now! Here’s another story on the same trend, from the St. Petersburg Times.
My blond, blue eyed cousin is one of the “lucky” people to share the name David Nelson. Google “david nelson terrorist” and you’ll see what I mean.
oddly enough, i kinda feel good that they are not just targeting funny looking brown people with funny sounding names.
Just flew back ten thousand miles, or whatever the exact mileage is, from Delhi to Miami with one arm in a cast. Severe scrutiny by officials in Delhi as well as in London during transit. Learned that a plaster cast, particularly the hard kind that the Mumbai orthopod mustered up in a hurry, could be a lethal weapon if the terrorist decides to choke someone to death. No sympathy from the flight atendants, no extra Scotch or anything. They were probably nervous with me in the cabin. Now, if I wasn’t brown…
Dangerous one loose and runnin’,
If I ever saw one.
Amazing.
Or used to hide a parts of a nuclear weapon a la Frederick Forsythe’s novel – the name of which I cannot recollect 🙂
Sorry to hear about your arm – get well soon
here’s a great op-ed by yasmin anwar from the honolulu advertiser about a federal retiree named kobayashi who was surprised to find himself on the no-fly list:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Mar/14/op/op15a.html
The Fourth Protocol? There are much better uses for plaster casts – to get priority seating on planes for instance.
Not that I would know…
Floridian – welcome back. Missed your sagacity.
Pinellas and Pasco county are “white bread” counties – at least it seemed that way to me.
I think what is going on is more of government doing something just to say they are doing something. The whole liquids thing is such a dumb security measure. Yes, theoretically, someone can bring a lquid of some sort and do damage on board. But really, do we live our lives around small possibilities? Do we make everyone drive 30mph on the highway just in case there is an unnmovable object around the bend?
I have taken contact lens solution bottles larger than 6 oz on a few occasions while they were tossed away on others. So despite all that inconvenience, this illustrates that this specific security measure is not even foolproof. All a terrorist has to do is keep trying until he finds that person who is incompetent.
As far as the name crap, I think the government is getting away with it not because whites are being very racist(though there are instances where white passengers do act racist and freak out over a middle easterner), but because this specific inconvenience does not affect the white community in the same numbers. So they do not feel it as much. So they do not understand the fuss over security measures as their friends and they do not find it to be that cumbersome to do it once in a while.
I spent a lot of time in Pinellas as a kid (my dad lives there) and my impression was that the African-American population is small but very poor, and racism is pretty bad there. The Tampa area also has a lot of migrant worker populations passing through, although they’re a bit more inland– my cousin went to East Bay HS and the migrant kids were pretty much treated as criminals there.
Outrageous, and chilling.
It’s worth mentioning, perhaps also in the post itself – that the kid is a British citizen of Pakistani (BCOP) origin. Although he’s clutching what clearly is a British passport, once you look at it hard enough – when I
readzoomed the story, I thought he was from Pakistan.Now of course, the system shouldn’t do that, but I wonder if it’s possible that his risk score increased after the name match came up, given that he was a BCOP orgin. Especially if the system doesn’t consider age and date of birth.
Chachaji, that is an excellent suggestion…I’m sorry that I left out the child’s origin. I put the post up in a hurry, because I am mindful of our readers’ desire for lunchtime (EST)/coffeetime (PST) reading material, if that buys me any sympathy for the omission. 🙂 Updating now…
I think what is going on is more of government doing something just to say they are doing something. The whole liquids thing is such a dumb security measure. Yes, theoretically, someone can bring a lquid of some sort and do damage on board. But really, do we live our lives around small possibilities? Do we make everyone drive 30mph on the highway just in case there is an unnmovable object around the bend?
Oh man, it’s killing me that I can’t remember the name of the stand-up comedian who had this routine… he was talking about how the security peoplewouldn’t let him bring liquids on the airplane, and then finally they relented and said “OK, you can bring it, but you have to put it in a little plastic baggie.”
The comedian was like “ORLY? A little plastic baggie prevents terrorism? Can I put, like, a gun in the plastic baggie and bring it on?”
Anyway, jokes aside, I do agree with you. There was recently a damning report that came out about Sky Harbor in Phoenix, AZ. Basically, between midnight and 4 a.m., the “security” guards would wave anybody and everybody through without checking ID or screening bags. (Story) Now, the crappy guards in that story were privately contracted, not federal agents. But seriously, why did it take a local television reporter to discover this? I guess the feds were too busy cracking down on those America-hating terrorist 7-year-olds.
There are genuinely times where I think that I should put on a kurta, a kufie, and grow my beard out a little longer and go walk around some airports for a while, just to introduce some random noise into the system. I don’t mean to mock the possibility of real terrorist threats, but given the farce that is current practices advocated by the TSA, especially as in the case of poor Javaid, that I think the people could stand to have a little more entropy.
Articles like these are always very painful/angering for me because I’ve literally stopped air travel since 9/11. I’ve turned down 2 freebie trips to Europe and 1 to Australia in the interim. Am I worried about the bad guys? No. It’s the f’ed system put in to place by the “good guys” run by high school grads/drop-outs and instituted by folks that want the American empire to expand at the expense of everything else that I’m really worried about. The traveler no longer has any control in their travel except to not do so, which is what I now do.
I’m a fan of putting everyone 7 years old and younger on the “no-fly” list, without regard to race or religion.
Any desi male out there got dreadlocks/mohawk, green hair, pink hair, tattoos, loads of piercings who can report on their travel experiences? I’m just curious what they do with a desi male whose appearance screams ‘pay attention to me’.
There’s an MP in Canada with a very white bread name (Williams, I think) who’s on the no-fly list. Has to get checked out everytime he jets around.
It keeps getting better.
Bruce Schneier coined the very apt term – security theater – to describe this kind of nonsense.
Worth following his blog if you are interested in a high signal-to-noise discussion of security.
I’m an American citizen and I travel in and out of the States several times a year. I’ve been sent to the back room every single time I’ve entered the US since 9/11. Does anybody else here feel that US bureaucracy is often totally robotic and process bound compared to other countries, such as the UK or Canada? Maybe its because the top 4000 or so jobs in government are appointments at the President’s pleasure, and career government employees begin work with a sense of being second-class employees. Who knows?
Oh my God, sakshi, please tell me that link is from an Onion wannabe!
American officers receive 56 hours of training  far less than their Israeli counterparts_ because U.S. officials want to be less intrusive.
Right, when I want to see good results, I immediately think “less training.”