Keystone homeland security (and why goo-goo-ism matters).
Houston — Edward Allen's reaction to being on the government's “no-fly” list should have been the tip-off that he is no terrorist.
“I don't want to be on the list. I want to fly and see my grandma,” the four-year-old boy said, according to his mother.
But the worst part is this. The child and mother in question are Jamaican. The mother eventually got them a round trip ticket on the flight, but not without being gratuitously insulted:
Ms. Allen, a Jamaican immigrant, said workers at La Guardia Airport were even more hard-nosed before their Dec. 26 flight home. She said a ticket agent told her: “You're lucky that we're letting you through instead of putting you through the other process.”
Good God. Some four year old's name is the same as that of somebody who presumably ought to be on the no-fly list and his family gets threatened with deportation, for no reason at all other than a dumb bureaucratic holdup.
This reminded me of Brad Blumer's post not long ago quoting a chunk from David Shipler's book on American poverty and welfare and this kaktus post at OurWord -- both about the humiliating bureaucratic hurdles low-income people have to jump to claim their benefits. Some of these are private sector and some government bureaucrats, but in all cases the problem doesn't stop at eligibility or what's in a welfare bill (or security protocol). People in vulnerable situations -- like Jamaican immigrants who gave their sons the wrong common name in the Age of Terrorism -- are vulnerable to being treated like shit. A decent society prevents that sort of thing. In the spirit of the recent Max Sawicky- Marc Schmitt discussion, it's not just about passing better, more sweeping, visionary, leftwing legislation. It's about the culture in which that legislation or protocols are enforced: which means plain old boring staid bureaucratic-reformist good government.
Specifically, the problem that jumps out in this particular article isn't the existence of the no-fly list or the fact that name matches can cause bits of inconvenience to travellers, at least not fundamentally. It's the surliness, the inflexibility, with which the legislation was enforced, adding insult to inconvenience. It's engrained. You can legislate respect but only if you enforce it too. Start by making sure whoever threatened Mrs. Allen with deportation gets fired.
“I don't want to be on the list. I want to fly and see my grandma,” the four-year-old boy said, according to his mother.
But the worst part is this. The child and mother in question are Jamaican. The mother eventually got them a round trip ticket on the flight, but not without being gratuitously insulted:
Ms. Allen, a Jamaican immigrant, said workers at La Guardia Airport were even more hard-nosed before their Dec. 26 flight home. She said a ticket agent told her: “You're lucky that we're letting you through instead of putting you through the other process.”
Good God. Some four year old's name is the same as that of somebody who presumably ought to be on the no-fly list and his family gets threatened with deportation, for no reason at all other than a dumb bureaucratic holdup.
This reminded me of Brad Blumer's post not long ago quoting a chunk from David Shipler's book on American poverty and welfare and this kaktus post at OurWord -- both about the humiliating bureaucratic hurdles low-income people have to jump to claim their benefits. Some of these are private sector and some government bureaucrats, but in all cases the problem doesn't stop at eligibility or what's in a welfare bill (or security protocol). People in vulnerable situations -- like Jamaican immigrants who gave their sons the wrong common name in the Age of Terrorism -- are vulnerable to being treated like shit. A decent society prevents that sort of thing. In the spirit of the recent Max Sawicky- Marc Schmitt discussion, it's not just about passing better, more sweeping, visionary, leftwing legislation. It's about the culture in which that legislation or protocols are enforced: which means plain old boring staid bureaucratic-reformist good government.
Specifically, the problem that jumps out in this particular article isn't the existence of the no-fly list or the fact that name matches can cause bits of inconvenience to travellers, at least not fundamentally. It's the surliness, the inflexibility, with which the legislation was enforced, adding insult to inconvenience. It's engrained. You can legislate respect but only if you enforce it too. Start by making sure whoever threatened Mrs. Allen with deportation gets fired.
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