Monday - August 15, 2005

Ali Baba GooGoo

Live from the Department Of Homeland Insecurity: if your baby has a towel wrapped around his hind-end and has a name that sounds Muslim, you better have his/her passport handy or else your’re gonna hold up the flight.

This message brought to you by Mohammed Gerbers Split Peas ....

WASHINGTON (AP) - Infants have been stopped from boarding planes at airports throughout the U.S. because their names are the same as or similar to those of possible terrorists on the government’s “no-fly list.”

It sounds like a joke, but it’s not funny to parents who miss flights while scrambling to have babies’ passports and other documents faxed.

Ingrid Sanden’s 1-year-old daughter was stopped in Phoenix before boarding a flight home to Washington at Thanksgiving.

“I completely understand the war on terrorism, and I completely understand people wanting to be safe when they fly,” Sanden said. “But focusing the target a little bit is probably a better use of resources.”

The government’s lists of people who are either barred from flying or require extra scrutiny before being allowed to board airplanes grew markedly since the Sept. 11 attacks. Critics including the American Civil Liberties Union say the government doesn’t provide enough information about the people on the lists, so innocent passengers can be caught up in the security sweep if they happen to have the same name as someone on the lists.

That can happen even if the person happens to be an infant like Sanden’s daughter. (Children under 2 don’t need tickets but Sanden purchased one for her daughter to ensure she had a seat.)

“It was bizarre,” Sanden said. “I was hugely pregnant, and I was like, ‘We look really threatening.’”

Note: anyone who has ever changed the diapers of a six-month-old definitely qualifies as an expert in Weapons Of Mass Destruction. PEEYEW!

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/15/2005 at 08:43 PM   
Filed Under: • Stoopid-People •  
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