Screening in Need of Sense

[Aviation Pro]

Screening in Need of Sense
Airline Databases and Bureaucracy Add Up to Wasted Resources

By Omar Khan
Post
Tuesday, April 26, 2005; A15

I'd like to share a personal experience that has ripple effects on our collective sense of "homeland security." As the head of a global leadership consulting firm, I travel frequently in and out of the United States. As a green card holder married to a U.S. citizen, I'd never had any problems doing so. I grew up in New York, the son of a Pakistani consul general, attended Stanford University, lived here as an adult. Emotionally, the United States has been my home for a long time.

Last October, returning to the United States from Canada, I was pulled aside for "secondary inspection." I sighed but reconciled myself (after all, if it can happen to Ted Kennedy . . .) to what I hoped would be a minor inconvenience.

We missed our flight. Finally, I was called in. Apparently airline databases respond only to names. In parts of the world, Omar Khan is as common a name as John Smith. Although I have an uncommon middle name, Saqib, the database isn't that sophisticated. Still, stopping every Omar Khan doesn't seem very efficient to me.

Rest here.

Since the administration is not really interested in actually securing our vital interests, my only conclusion for this insanity is that they are setting up TSA and every other alphabet soup agency for failure. Then when the inevitable attack occurs, they can blame the organizations instead of their miserable, American-hating selves.

[bemildred]

1. Airlines, are themselves, for the most part, wasted resources. nt