This is the Threatdown! The Number One threat to America... TODDLERS!

[KamaAina]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/18-month-old-baby-pulled-flight-parents-interviewed-175521187.html

The parents of an 18-month-old girl say they were "humiliated" after being pulled off a plane and told their young child had been placed on a no-fly list.

After boarding a JetBlue flight in Ft. Lauderdale, the parents of young Riyanna, who asked to remain anonymous over fears of repercussions, were told the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) wanted to interview their toddler.

"And I said, 'For what?'" Riyanna's mother told ABC affiliate WPBF 25 News on Wednesday. "And he said, 'Well, it's not you or your husband. Your daughter was flagged as no fly.' I said, 'Excuse me?'"

Whoever is to blame, the parents say they believe the incident began because they are both of Middle Eastern descent and because the wife wears a hijab, a traditional headscarf. A 2011 poll from the Pew Research Center found that Muslim Americans say they believe they are disproportionately singled out by airport security officers.

TERRA! TERRA!! TERRA!!!



edit: No-fly list?? It looks like she just got off the no-walk list!!!

[jberryhill]

1. The problem with the no-fly list is that it is a name-matching exercise

Except for unaccompanied minors, there is usually nothing in the system which indicates the age of a passenger.

If the name of the passenger is close to a name on the list, that passenger gets flagged.

It's a stupid system, but it's not like anyone thought that a toddler was a terrorist.

It also had nothing to do with what the mother was wearing.

It is solely the consequence of matching names on the list to names on the manifest.

[Bolo Boffin]

2. But there should be some kind of way that the TSA could say

"You know what? This is obviously a name matching issue and you are free to go, folks. Have a nice flight."

[jberryhill]

3. And that's the other administrative problem

The TSA doesn't make the no-fly list, but they have to enforce it.

The upshot is that they do not know why or how a name got onto the list in the first place. For all they know, there was a report of an attempt to smuggle a weapon on a child, because the TSA can't backtrack from "a name on a list" to "why that name is there".

That's why it is a silly system.

Procedure for false positives is spelled out for them, and they don't have any discretion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List#False_positives

What isn't clear in this story is whether they had purchased an additional seat, or were taking the toddler as a "lap passenger" which some airlines permit up to age two. The name should have been flagged before a boarding pass was issued, but I wonder if they were planning to take the toddler as a lap passenger, but bought a last-minute discount ticket at the gate, which some airlines will sell when there is excess capacity. Then, if the toddler was ticketed separately from the parents, the itinerary looks like a last minute cash ticket, which in combination with other factors, can raise the risk profile associated with that ticket.