White, Cub Scout, 8 years old - and on Obama's "Terrorist Watch List"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/ny...watchlist.html

The Transportation Security Administration, under scrutiny after last
month’s bombing attempt, has on its Web site a “mythbuster” that tries to
reassure the public.

Myth: The No-Fly list includes an 8-year-old boy.

Buster: No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list.

“Meet Mikey Hicks,” said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old
son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a
plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person.
“It’s not a myth.”

Michael Winston Hicks’s mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby
and she could not get a seat for him on their flight to Florida at an
airport kiosk; airline officials explained that his name “was on the
list,” she recalled.

The first time he was patted down, at Newark Liberty International
Airport, Mikey was 2. He cried.

After years of long delays and waits for supervisors at every airport
ticket counter, this year’s vacation to the Bahamas badly shook up the
family. Mikey was frisked on the way there, then more aggressively on the
way home.

“Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch — someone is patting your 8-
year-old down like he’s a criminal,” Mrs. Hicks recounted. “A terrorist
can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old
can’t walk through security without being frisked.”

It is true that Mikey is not on the federal government’s “no-fly” list,
which includes about 2,500 people, less than 10 percent of them from the
United States. But his name appears to be among some 13,500 on the larger
“selectee” list, which sets off a high level of security screening.

At some point, someone named Michael Hicks made the Department of Homeland
Security suspicious, and little Mikey is still paying the price. (His
father, also named Michael Hicks, was stopped for the first time on the
Bahamas trip.)

Both lists are maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, which
includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They are given to the
Transportation Security Administration, which in turn sends them to the
airlines.

A spokesman for the T.S.A., James Fotenos, said that as a rule, “there are
no children on the no-fly or selectee lists,” but would not comment on
Mikey’s situation specifically.

For every person on the lists, hundreds of others may get caught up simply
because they share the same name; a quick scan through a national phone
directory unearthed 1,600 Michael Hickses. Over the past three years,
81,793 frustrated travelers have formally asked that they be struck from
the watch list through the Department of Homeland Security; more than
25,000 of their cases are still pending. Others have taken more drastic
measures.

Mario Labbé, a frequent-flying Canadian record-company executive, started
having problems at airports shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, with lengthy
delays at checkpoints and mysterious questions about Japan. By 2005, he
stopped flying to the United States from Canada, instead meeting American
clients in France. Then a forced rerouting to Miami in 2008 led to six
hours of questions.

“What’s the name of your mother? Your father? When were you last in
Japan?” Mr. Labbé recalled being asked. “Always the same questions in
different order. And sometimes, it’s quite aggressive, not funny at all.”

Fed up, in the summer of 2008, he changed his name to François Mario
Labbé. The problem vanished.

Several Web sites, including the T.S.A.’s own blog, are rife with tales of
misidentification and strategies for solving them. Some travelers
purposely misspell their own names when buying tickets, apparently enough
to fool the system. Even the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy once found
himself on a list.

“We can’t just throw a bunch of names on these lists and call it
security,” said Representative William J. Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey
Democrat. “If we can’t get an 8-year-old off the list, the whole list
becomes suspect.”

Mr. Fotenos, the T.S.A. spokesman, promised improvements in a few months,
as the agency’s Secure Flight Program takes full effect. Under the new
system, airlines will collect every passenger’s birth date and gender,
along with their names. The T.S.A. will cross-check all that with the
watch lists. Previously, the airlines cross-checked the lists themselves,
using only the names.

Certainly, Mikey’s date of birth, less than a month before 9/11, should
prevent him from being mistaken as a terrorist.

A third grader at a parochial school in Clifton, N.J., Mikey recites the
drill like the world-weary traveler he is. Leave early for the airport,
always with his passport. Try to get a boarding pass at the counter. This
will send up a flag. The ticket agent, peering down at tiny bespectacled
Mikey, will apologize or roll her eyes, and call for a supervisor. The
supervisor, after a phone call — or, more likely, a series of phone calls
— will ultimately finagle him onto the plane. But the Hickses are
typically the last to select seats and the last to board, which means they
sometimes can’t sit together.

Mrs. Hicks, a photojournalist who herself got Secret Service clearance to
travel aboard Air Force II with then-Vice President Al Gore, anticipated
additional chaos following the attempted underwear bombing. Before leaving
for the Bahamas on Jan. 2, she reached out to Congressman Pascrell’s
office, which then enlisted a T.S.A. agent to meet the family at the
airport. Even this did not prevent Mikey from an extra pat-down.

On the way home last Friday, Mikey’s boarding pass showed four giant red
S’s at the airport in Nassau. “Oh, random screening,” Mrs. Hicks said.
Mikey asked his mother not to worry and said he would use his tae kwon do
— he has a junior black belt — if needed. Mrs. Hicks said she wanted to
take pictures of her son being frisked but was told it was against the
rules.

Mikey, who would rather talk about BMX bikes and his athletic trophies
than airport security, remains perplexed about the “list” and the hurdles
he must clear. “Why do they think a kid is a terrorist?” Mikey asked his
mother at one point during the interview.

Mrs. Hicks said the family was amused by the mistake at first. But that
amusement quickly turned to annoyance and anger. It should not take seven
years to correct the problem, Mrs. Hicks said. She applied for redress in
December when she first heard about the Department of Homeland Security’s
program.

“I understand the need for security,” she added. “But this is ridiculous.
It’s quite clear that he is 8 years old, and while he may have terroristic
tendencies at home, he does not have those on a plane.”


--
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact, to
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New York's
million dollar tax evasion. Charles B. Rangel is still under
"investigation" by a "closed door" House Ethics Committee.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

"Leroy N. Soetoro" wrote in message
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/ny...watchlist.html

The Transportation Security Administration, under scrutiny after last
month's bombing attempt, has on its Web site a "mythbuster" that tries to
reassure the public.

Myth: The No-Fly list includes an 8-year-old boy.

Buster: No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list.

"Meet Mikey Hicks," said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old
son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a
plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person.
"It's not a myth."

Michael Winston Hicks's mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby
and she could not get a seat for him on their flight to Florida at an
airport kiosk; airline officials explained that his name "was on the
list," she recalled.

The first time he was patted down, at Newark Liberty International
Airport, Mikey was 2. He cried.

After years of long delays and waits for supervisors at every airport
ticket counter, this year's vacation to the Bahamas badly shook up the
family. Mikey was frisked on the way there, then more aggressively on the
way home.

"Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch - someone is patting your 8-
year-old down like he's a criminal," Mrs. Hicks recounted. "A terrorist
can blow his underwear up and they don't catch him. But my 8-year-old
can't walk through security without being frisked."

It is true that Mikey is not on the federal government's "no-fly" list,
which includes about 2,500 people, less than 10 percent of them from the
United States. But his name appears to be among some 13,500 on the larger
"selectee" list, which sets off a high level of security screening.

At some point, someone named Michael Hicks made the Department of Homeland
Security suspicious, and little Mikey is still paying the price. (His
father, also named Michael Hicks, was stopped for the first time on the
Bahamas trip.)

Both lists are maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, which
includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They are given to the
Transportation Security Administration, which in turn sends them to the
airlines.

A spokesman for the T.S.A., James Fotenos, said that as a rule, "there are
no children on the no-fly or selectee lists," but would not comment on
Mikey's situation specifically.

For every person on the lists, hundreds of others may get caught up simply
because they share the same name; a quick scan through a national phone
directory unearthed 1,600 Michael Hickses. Over the past three years,
81,793 frustrated travelers have formally asked that they be struck from
the watch list through the Department of Homeland Security; more than
25,000 of their cases are still pending. Others have taken more drastic
measures.

Mario Labbé, a frequent-flying Canadian record-company executive, started
having problems at airports shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, with lengthy
delays at checkpoints and mysterious questions about Japan. By 2005, he
stopped flying to the United States from Canada, instead meeting American
clients in France. Then a forced rerouting to Miami in 2008 led to six
hours of questions.

"What's the name of your mother? Your father? When were you last in
Japan?" Mr. Labbé recalled being asked. "Always the same questions in
different order. And sometimes, it's quite aggressive, not funny at all."

Fed up, in the summer of 2008, he changed his name to François Mario
Labbé. The problem vanished.

Several Web sites, including the T.S.A.'s own blog, are rife with tales of
misidentification and strategies for solving them. Some travelers
purposely misspell their own names when buying tickets, apparently enough
to fool the system. Even the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy once found
himself on a list.

"We can't just throw a bunch of names on these lists and call it
security," said Representative William J. Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey
Democrat. "If we can't get an 8-year-old off the list, the whole list
becomes suspect."

Mr. Fotenos, the T.S.A. spokesman, promised improvements in a few months,
as the agency's Secure Flight Program takes full effect. Under the new
system, airlines will collect every passenger's birth date and gender,
along with their names. The T.S.A. will cross-check all that with the
watch lists. Previously, the airlines cross-checked the lists themselves,
using only the names.

Certainly, Mikey's date of birth, less than a month before 9/11, should
prevent him from being mistaken as a terrorist.

A third grader at a parochial school in Clifton, N.J., Mikey recites the
drill like the world-weary traveler he is. Leave early for the airport,
always with his passport. Try to get a boarding pass at the counter. This
will send up a flag. The ticket agent, peering down at tiny bespectacled
Mikey, will apologize or roll her eyes, and call for a supervisor. The
supervisor, after a phone call - or, more likely, a series of phone calls
- will ultimately finagle him onto the plane. But the Hickses are
typically the last to select seats and the last to board, which means they
sometimes can't sit together.

Mrs. Hicks, a photojournalist who herself got Secret Service clearance to
travel aboard Air Force II with then-Vice President Al Gore, anticipated
additional chaos following the attempted underwear bombing. Before leaving
for the Bahamas on Jan. 2, she reached out to Congressman Pascrell's
office, which then enlisted a T.S.A. agent to meet the family at the
airport. Even this did not prevent Mikey from an extra pat-down.

On the way home last Friday, Mikey's boarding pass showed four giant red
S's at the airport in Nassau. "Oh, random screening," Mrs. Hicks said.
Mikey asked his mother not to worry and said he would use his tae kwon do
- he has a junior black belt - if needed. Mrs. Hicks said she wanted to
take pictures of her son being frisked but was told it was against the
rules.

Mikey, who would rather talk about BMX bikes and his athletic trophies
than airport security, remains perplexed about the "list" and the hurdles
he must clear. "Why do they think a kid is a terrorist?" Mikey asked his
mother at one point during the interview.

Mrs. Hicks said the family was amused by the mistake at first. But that
amusement quickly turned to annoyance and anger. It should not take seven
years to correct the problem, Mrs. Hicks said. She applied for redress in
December when she first heard about the Department of Homeland Security's
program.

"I understand the need for security," she added. "But this is ridiculous.
It's quite clear that he is 8 years old, and while he may have terroristic
tendencies at home, he does not have those on a plane."


--
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact, to
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New York's
million dollar tax evasion. Charles B. Rangel is still under
"investigation" by a "closed door" House Ethics Committee.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

So Obama implemented the watch list? No he did not. I don't know who
did, it may not even have been the obvious culprit Dubbya but even it was in
use before he came along if any President can be blamed, he can.

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:51:37 -0000, "Graham Harrison"
wrote:


"Leroy N. Soetoro" wrote in message
. ..
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/ny...watchlist.html

The Transportation Security Administration, under scrutiny after last
month's bombing attempt, has on its Web site a "mythbuster" that tries to
reassure the public.

Myth: The No-Fly list includes an 8-year-old boy.

Buster: No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list.

Only one problem: he was added to the list at least six years ago.

Obviously he needs to be taken OFF the list, but why wasn't his name
removed when this first came up in 2004?


"Meet Mikey Hicks," said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old
son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a
plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person.
"It's not a myth."

Michael Winston Hicks's mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby
and she could not get a seat for him on their flight to Florida at an
airport kiosk; airline officials explained that his name "was on the
list," she recalled.

The first time he was patted down, at Newark Liberty International
Airport, Mikey was 2. He cried.

After years of long delays and waits for supervisors at every airport
ticket counter, this year's vacation to the Bahamas badly shook up the
family. Mikey was frisked on the way there, then more aggressively on the
way home.

"Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch - someone is patting your 8-
year-old down like he's a criminal," Mrs. Hicks recounted. "A terrorist
can blow his underwear up and they don't catch him. But my 8-year-old
can't walk through security without being frisked."

It is true that Mikey is not on the federal government's "no-fly" list,
which includes about 2,500 people, less than 10 percent of them from the
United States. But his name appears to be among some 13,500 on the larger
"selectee" list, which sets off a high level of security screening.

At some point, someone named Michael Hicks made the Department of Homeland
Security suspicious, and little Mikey is still paying the price. (His
father, also named Michael Hicks, was stopped for the first time on the
Bahamas trip.)

Both lists are maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, which
includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They are given to the
Transportation Security Administration, which in turn sends them to the
airlines.

A spokesman for the T.S.A., James Fotenos, said that as a rule, "there are
no children on the no-fly or selectee lists," but would not comment on
Mikey's situation specifically.

For every person on the lists, hundreds of others may get caught up simply
because they share the same name; a quick scan through a national phone
directory unearthed 1,600 Michael Hickses. Over the past three years,
81,793 frustrated travelers have formally asked that they be struck from
the watch list through the Department of Homeland Security; more than
25,000 of their cases are still pending. Others have taken more drastic
measures.

Mario Labbé, a frequent-flying Canadian record-company executive, started
having problems at airports shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, with lengthy
delays at checkpoints and mysterious questions about Japan. By 2005, he
stopped flying to the United States from Canada, instead meeting American
clients in France. Then a forced rerouting to Miami in 2008 led to six
hours of questions.

"What's the name of your mother? Your father? When were you last in
Japan?" Mr. Labbé recalled being asked. "Always the same questions in
different order. And sometimes, it's quite aggressive, not funny at all."

Fed up, in the summer of 2008, he changed his name to François Mario
Labbé. The problem vanished.

Several Web sites, including the T.S.A.'s own blog, are rife with tales of
misidentification and strategies for solving them. Some travelers
purposely misspell their own names when buying tickets, apparently enough
to fool the system. Even the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy once found
himself on a list.

"We can't just throw a bunch of names on these lists and call it
security," said Representative William J. Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey
Democrat. "If we can't get an 8-year-old off the list, the whole list
becomes suspect."

Mr. Fotenos, the T.S.A. spokesman, promised improvements in a few months,
as the agency's Secure Flight Program takes full effect. Under the new
system, airlines will collect every passenger's birth date and gender,
along with their names. The T.S.A. will cross-check all that with the
watch lists. Previously, the airlines cross-checked the lists themselves,
using only the names.

Certainly, Mikey's date of birth, less than a month before 9/11, should
prevent him from being mistaken as a terrorist.

A third grader at a parochial school in Clifton, N.J., Mikey recites the
drill like the world-weary traveler he is. Leave early for the airport,
always with his passport. Try to get a boarding pass at the counter. This
will send up a flag. The ticket agent, peering down at tiny bespectacled
Mikey, will apologize or roll her eyes, and call for a supervisor. The
supervisor, after a phone call - or, more likely, a series of phone calls
- will ultimately finagle him onto the plane. But the Hickses are
typically the last to select seats and the last to board, which means they
sometimes can't sit together.

Mrs. Hicks, a photojournalist who herself got Secret Service clearance to
travel aboard Air Force II with then-Vice President Al Gore, anticipated
additional chaos following the attempted underwear bombing. Before leaving
for the Bahamas on Jan. 2, she reached out to Congressman Pascrell's
office, which then enlisted a T.S.A. agent to meet the family at the
airport. Even this did not prevent Mikey from an extra pat-down.

On the way home last Friday, Mikey's boarding pass showed four giant red
S's at the airport in Nassau. "Oh, random screening," Mrs. Hicks said.
Mikey asked his mother not to worry and said he would use his tae kwon do
- he has a junior black belt - if needed. Mrs. Hicks said she wanted to
take pictures of her son being frisked but was told it was against the
rules.

Mikey, who would rather talk about BMX bikes and his athletic trophies
than airport security, remains perplexed about the "list" and the hurdles
he must clear. "Why do they think a kid is a terrorist?" Mikey asked his
mother at one point during the interview.

Mrs. Hicks said the family was amused by the mistake at first. But that
amusement quickly turned to annoyance and anger. It should not take seven
years to correct the problem, Mrs. Hicks said. She applied for redress in
December when she first heard about the Department of Homeland Security's
program.

"I understand the need for security," she added. "But this is ridiculous.
It's quite clear that he is 8 years old, and while he may have terroristic
tendencies at home, he does not have those on a plane."


--
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact, to
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New York's
million dollar tax evasion. Charles B. Rangel is still under
"investigation" by a "closed door" House Ethics Committee.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

So Obama implemented the watch list? No he did not. I don't know who
did, it may not even have been the obvious culprit Dubbya but even it was in
use before he came along if any President can be blamed, he can.

"Graham Harrison" wrote in message
...

So Obama implemented the watch list? No he did not.

But his administration has been responsible for maintaining the list for a
year now.

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:31:22 -0500, Sancho Panza wrote:

"Graham Harrison" wrote in
message ...

So Obama implemented the watch list? No he did not.

But his administration has been responsible for maintaining the list for
a year now.

After the Bush administration failed to fix it for the five years after
this particular case first came up.

I guess they were too busy capturing Osama bin Laden.





--
"Normandy beachhead participants did not know or guess that most of them
would die" - David Heil

If you're not careful in the USA - you are going to tear yourselves apart as
a nation. You are becoming so irrationally partisan as to threaten
democratic government.

Perhaps reading and study of : "The History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire" by English historian Edward Gibbon should be made mandatory in
your High Schools!





"5326 Dead, 459 since 1/20/09" wrote in message
et...
On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:31:22 -0500, Sancho Panza wrote:

"Graham Harrison" wrote in
message ...

So Obama implemented the watch list? No he did not.

But his administration has been responsible for maintaining the list for
a year now.

After the Bush administration failed to fix it for the five years after
this particular case first came up.

I guess they were too busy capturing Osama bin Laden.





--
"Normandy beachhead participants did not know or guess that most of them
would die" - David Heil

In article ,
" A Mate" wrote:

If you're not careful in the USA - you are going to tear yourselves apart as
a nation. You are becoming so irrationally partisan as to threaten
democratic government.

Perhaps reading and study of : "The History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire" by English historian Edward Gibbon should be made mandatory in
your High Schools!


That, of course, assumes facts not in evidence... that people in
American High Schools can read.

--
To find that place where the rats don't race
and the phones don't ring at all.
If once, you've slept on an island.
Scott Kirby "If once you've slept on an island"

A Mate wrote:
If you're not careful in the USA - you are going to tear yourselves apart as
a nation. You are becoming so irrationally partisan as to threaten
democratic government.

Perhaps reading and study of : "The History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire" by English historian Edward Gibbon should be made mandatory in
your High Schools!



Here's the link: http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/home.html




"5326 Dead, 459 since 1/20/09" wrote in message
et...
On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:31:22 -0500, Sancho Panza wrote:

"Graham Harrison" wrote in
message ...
So Obama implemented the watch list? No he did not.
But his administration has been responsible for maintaining the list for
a year now.
After the Bush administration failed to fix it for the five years after
this particular case first came up.

I guess they were too busy capturing Osama bin Laden.





--
"Normandy beachhead participants did not know or guess that most of them
would die" - David Heil