Cat Stevens deportation linked to spelling error: report

[skooooo]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1541&ncid=1541&e=2&u=/afp/20040925/en_afp/us_attacks_air_britain_040925223243


NEW YORK (AFP) - An incident this week in which British former pop star Cat Stevens (news) was deported from the United States to London as a "no-fly" terrorist risk was caused by a spelling error.


Stevens, 57, gave up his successful pop career in the late 1970s, taking the name Yusuf Islam and converting to Islam.


He had been travelling from London to Washington on Tuesday when his flight was diverted to Bangor, Maine, where he was detained on "national security grounds" and summarily put on a plane to London, according to US security officials.

[otohara]

1. Incompetent Morans

oh those Muslim names all look alike

[dolo amber]

2. HA!!

I wondered how long it'd take before they came up with something like this...I mean, it's clearly the only out they have, innit??

"Really, we promise...we're not evil, we're just stupid!" :eyes:

[mark0rama]

22. Yes, the correct spelling is C-Y-A!

(nt)

[Magrittes Pipe]

3. What they're not telling us...

...is that noted terrorist mastermind Yusaf Islum is now in the country attending flight school, thanks to them diverting the wrong fucking plane.

[miss_kitty]

4. well whadya expect in a country whose Dept of Education reckons

40 million people are illiterate. and remember the ultra high standards our Dept of Education has for literacy-if you can read a menu, or a traffic sign, brother, you are lit-er-ate!

[City Lights]

5. They must be using the same system to screen passengers that

FL used to purge the voter rolls. Anything close is a match.

[olddem43]

6. Noted Islamist Muhammad Ali will likely be next -

Hell, even Sen. Edward Kennedy was on the list. No one would recognize these two without a list to go by.

[Karenina]

7. OOOHHHHH

Gimme a fuckin' break. :eyes: :SIGH:

[rooboy]

8. Yeah. TED KENNEDY was a spelling error, too. BULLSHIT. n/t

[darknesstolight]

9. Should of funded no child left behind

Should of funded no child left behind because someone always gets left behind.

[Skarbrowe]

10. If you flew anywhere in June the government wants to know.

The Big G wants the FAA to turn over all records of anyone who happened to fly on an airliner in the month of June. They want names, seat numbers, mode of payment, possibly including credit card number and other data. I just realized I don't have a link handy to this article. Maybe someone else has read this or it might be posted somewhere on the DU. I read it in the Florida Sun-Sentinel and then a couple other places and heard it referred to on one of the talking head shows.

Anyway, I flew in June and I rarely, if ever, fly. Well, hell. I have nothing to hide. Dang, I had a top, top secret clearance, Commendation Medal, bunches of awards while in the military and I've got a fantastic credit rating. Still, it bugs a person just a wee bit.

Sorry I don't have a link. I've got to unplug this computer right now. Jeanne's outside.

[Eloriel]

11. COMPLETE and utter bunk -- see this thread

They're just trying to whitewash and smooth over a VERY unpopular move on their part:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=865289

Link to this MSNBC article in the OP:

Oct. 4 issue - Security officials can't quite explain why singer Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam, was on a U.S. government "no fly" list. Homeland Security officials diverted his D.C.-bound jet to Bangor, Maine. Security experts in England said that Islam years ago helped set up an Islamic charity which campaigned to bar non-Muslims from Jerusalem; he also allegedly provided funds to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. In 1994, according to German police records, the singer met a German Islamic militant who later was mentor to 9/11 hijackers. But recently Yusuf Islam broke with Muslim militants, condemning extremism and pledging proceeds from a CD set to 9/11 families. Jewish leaders in Britain praise him as a moderate and say an Islamic school he set up in North London teaches a peaceful brand of Islam. "All indications are that his move away from extremism is entirely genuine, and he now concentrates on his school and his music," said Michael Whine, a spokesman for Britain's Jewish community.

U.S. security officials say that Islam's name for years has been on watch lists requiring that his U.S. visits be monitored. Records show that since 1999, he has visited the United States at least 19 times, most recently last May, when he traveled to Washington and met with top Bush administration officials, including U.S. foreign-aid chief Andrew Natsios; Jim Towey, chief of the White House office for "faith based" programs, and a Treasury official hunting terrorist financiers. What changed since May? Sources say the CIA issued a fresh intelligence report accusing Islam of recently meeting with extremists overseas—possibly in Dubai, where he maintains a residence; on July 27, at the request of the "intelligence community," the Homeland Security Department put his name on a "no fly" list, which banned him from getting on any U.S.-bound flight. (He was allowed to board his flight to Washington by mistake.) But sources familiar with U.S. intelligence told NEWSWEEK most of the info on Islam is old and that the latest intel may be of little consequence. Islam is threatening legal action to clear his name, and issued a statement denouncing "all forms of terrorism and injustice; it is simply outrageous for the U.S. authorities to suggest otherwise."

[Bluebear]

12. Yeah, we believe that Mr. Ashcroft

Another flip-flop....Too much bad world press and a pending suit from the singer? I don't believe this "mispelling" crap for a minute.

[gottaB]

13. Yusuf Islam is the preferred spelling

but if you google "Youssouf Islam" "Youssef Islam," "Yousef Islam," "Yusef Islam," or "Yusuf Al-Islam" you will find that all results contain references to the person formerly known as "Cat Stevens."

I don't believe this is a case of mistaken identity.

[jpgray]

14. What was the misspelling? I call bullshit

All common roman alphabet renderings of the name Yusef should still connect with Stevens, unless they misspelled 'Islam'

[MisterP]

15. I guess Cat is no longer the antichrist, then?

[The_Casual_Observer]

16. Well I think it's fine building jumbo planes

But they won't let me fly to the US in them.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

17. Is the Cat out of the bag?

:shrug:

[JCMach1]

18. This can be a huge problem... there is really no standardized

western spellin for arabic names...

Trust me when I say dealing with arabic names are a problem ... I have 3 Mohammed Mohammed's in a single class this semester... :)

If we want to do security right, we are going to have to go to data such as retinal scans... I don't see an easy solution... :(

[jpgray]

19. Or really any alternate alphabet--Chinggis, Genghis

Zheng He, Cheng Ho, etc. But still, I don't think a spelling error is the cause here.

[JCMach1]

20. I don't either

:)

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. I think the story is saying the spelling error was why he was allowed on

when the US wanted him banned from even boarding the flight. ie the check by the airline said "different name, different person"; but the US government said "no, that's the one we're out to get, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens".

They have have screwups based on names before:

This led to a child with a name similar to a Tunisian terrorist, a Welsh insurance agent and an elderly Chinese woman restaurant owner being questioned by counter-terrorist police when several flights from Paris to the US were cancelled shortly before Christmas.

Three other "suspects" who were questioned were French citizens with Arab-sounding names.

All the suspects' names, supplied by the US, were found merely to be homonyms - similar in sound or spelling to those of wanted al-Qaida activists.
...
"Unfortunately," the spokesman added, "the Americans did not supply either birthdate or first name in any of these cases, so we had to hold up all passengers and in some cases carry out lengthy inquiries into family backgrounds in case there was a link."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1115310,00.html

You'd have thought that they'd tell the airlines name and passport number (which they must know - I suppose Islam could have got a new passport in the last couple of months, but if that was it, this shows another hole in a screening process).

[DeaconBlues]

23. What about all the pundits who spent all of last week speculating

about what Islam had done? It was sickening how they just automatically declared the man to be guilty, and that what the government had done was automatically right 'cause they had "new information" (information, coincidently, they wouldn't share).

Any apologies forthcoming? I didn't think so.

[Cocoa]

24. maybe Cat will sue them

hopefully they were careless in their eagerness to pile on.