From the “to truly mess things up, you need government” department:
30,000 People Mistakenly Put on Terrorist Watch List
Seems like such a simple thing, right? I mean, the goal is admirable: keep terrorists off planes. Okay, simple enough (assuming you have a good definition of what a “terrorist” really is – and it’s debatable whether our government has a good definition, but for the purpose of this discussion we’ll assume that we do have a good definition).
So, we’ve got a goal – now how do we achieve it? Well, it seems simple, right? Just keep a list of terrorists or suspected terrorists, and don’t let those people on planes. Easy, right?
If you’ve thought about this problem for more than 1 second, you’ve probably already picked up on the problems here, and how this is most definitely not easy.
How do you identify a terrorist? By name? Okay – what if they change their name? Or use a fake name? Well, you could start putting “suspected” fake names on the list, but it should be obvious that this will quickly spiral out of control, and people with common names (like Smith) will end up being banned – and there are a lot of Smiths out there. Eventually you’ll have a huge list of names, and almost everyone will be “suspected” and not allowed on the plane.
In short, the system just does not work – and it cannot work. It is imperative that people understand this. An identification system for terrorists (or criminals, for that matter) CAN NOT work. Ever.
Why, you ask? The answer is: because we have no world-wide system of unique, unforgeable identification. As long as names can be changed, papers can be forged, licenses & passports can be duplicated, there can be no positive identification of anyone – and when you’re dealing with inherently unknowable information (such as “suspected” terrorists), the issue quickly blurs out of control, and you end up with situations like this – when 30,000 ordinary people end up on a “watch” list, for who knows what reason. And in the end, a terrorist probably took a plane ride anyway.
The whole system is just a waste of time, money, and effort. There are better ways to protect us against terrorism – we should just drop the whole “watch list” idea and focus on other, more reliable things.
But that’s just my opinion.
