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Comment by tdees40 | Hacker News Reader

We were flying with my son (then six months old) recently, and he has a reasonably uncommon name. He was flagged by the TSA as being on the no-fly list, which caused us to have to submit to onerous additional security procedures and miss our flight. So, ya know, way to go, TSA.

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I have a friend with an extremely common Irish name. There's a suspected terrorist with the same name, and he's on the no-fly list. My friend has a redress number now, but at the time he had to check-in at the counter and show ID every time he flew. Fortunately, different birthday. Now imagine being the unlucky person with the same name and birthday as the suspected terrorist.

The financial list discussed in this posting sounds much, much more onerous.

Thank goodness evil terrorists wouldn't stoop so low as to change the date of birth on their ID...

Had this exact experience for.. well, 2006-2010 or so, I too have a very common name.

Couldnt check in online. Unable to use Kiosk to check in Had to show ID at counter. Had SSSS on every boarding pass - with random extra inspection for every tlight

Then one day, it stopped, now knock on wood I can check in online or at kiosk.

Your 6 month old kid is already a terrorist? Way to go, parent.

I knew I shouldn't have joined that Hezbollah playgroup!

"Wanted for the destruction of three t-shirts with a bio-agent."

"Weapon of mass destruction" accurately describes many children. Mine included, at times.

This is really exceptionally ridiculous. I hope that this incident has ignited a healthy hatred of these policies enough to inspire you to attempt to change things by suing or political donations.

> hatred of these policies enough to inspire you to attempt to change things by suing or political donations

I honestly can't tell if you are being sarcastic.

Security by stupidity.

Yeah, but people don't care about this stuff until it happens to inconvenience them.

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