Persecution by Paperwork

July 24, 2006 6:53 PM

Marshals: Innocent People Placed On 'Watch List' To Meet Quota "Innocent passengers are being entered into an international intelligence database as suspicious persons, acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft ... and they did nothing wrong," says one federal Air Marshal. Why? Because a memo from management requires marshals to file one Surveillance Detection Report (SDR) per month, and failure to do so will negatively impact upon their annual raises, bonuses, awards and special assignments. Marshals deny fabricating stories wholesale, but claim to have resorted to creatively stretching the truth to turn benign acts into potential threats and the harm this may cause to people who have done nothing wrong seems irrelevant to the marshals and the TSA officials who created the rules.
posted by Dreama (44 comments total)

Let these men earn their raises honestly by doing them a favor and acting up on your next flight.
posted by pmbuko at 7:03 PM on July 24, 2006

TOTALLY AWESOME!!!
posted by rxrfrx at 7:05 PM on July 24, 2006

Secrecy breeds incompetence. The secrecy of this program allows substandard managers and more to harm a very necessary and valuable government safety program. Let the Marshals speak out. Reveal the good and bad of the Air Marshal program. Find and fix the weaknesses. The current situation is criminal in its harm to America. Are these managers of the Air Marshal program really working for al Qaeda?
posted by caddis at 7:12 PM on July 24, 2006

ahhh state mandated terrorist sub-class. They need someone to scapegoat and put in prison camps like they did to the japanese in WW2
posted by MrLint at 7:12 PM on July 24, 2006

The new fear of flying will be, in reality, a fear of body cavity searches.
posted by IronLizard at 7:17 PM on July 24, 2006

The fun part, of course, is that once you're on their list, you can't find out about it in advance (saving yourself the embarassment of being pulled from a flight) and you can't have yourself easily removed (saving yourself the same embarassment, repeated over and over again.)

Now, imagine pissing one of these benighted marshals. Kicked his seat once too often? Got in his or her way? Had one too many peanut packets? Wore a T-shirt he or she didn't like? Guess you'll be taking the bus from now on.

I love the new Amerika.
posted by FormlessOne at 7:27 PM on July 24, 2006

They said they were going to send me to Guantanamo because I have an olive skinned complexion, I reek of semtex (a heriditary affliction,) and I was wearing a novelty t-shirt of dynamite screen-printed in suicide-bomber fashion. Oh, and my surname is Ibn Al Abrihim Zarqawi.

Luckily these guys take bribes like anyone else - as a matter of fact, I only had to let him blow me once and I gave him a fake number when we arrived at Ronald Regan Airport. I can tell you first hand that the Air Marshal program is simply a ploy to get the homo's out of regular law enforcement.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. . .
posted by isopraxis at 7:34 PM on July 24, 2006 [1 favorite]

Once again: If you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:34 PM on July 24, 2006

Round up the usual suspects.
posted by Twang at 7:35 PM on July 24, 2006

Oh come on! If you can't catch at least one terrorist per month, you might as well turn in your badge.
posted by fungible at 7:36 PM on July 24, 2006

This does not surprise me in the least.
What we really need, as soon as possible, is some sort of transportation revolution. Something to free us from the stranglehold the airline industry has on international travel.
posted by nightchrome at 7:38 PM on July 24, 2006

"If you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear."

I'm sorry, but that's more than a little naive, based on the news from the last 5 years.

Furthermore: see the post earlier today: "95 Theses of Geek Activism":

"#15 The true enemy is the line: 'If you haven’t done anything wrong, what do you fear?' The problem with that line, as Schneier has said, is that it assumes that the desire for privacy implies wrong-doing."

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_pr.html

posted by Twang at 7:44 PM on July 24, 2006

Holy shit, that is outrageous. Time to write our officials, representatives, Congressman and speak up about this. If they don't do something about this then say they will not be voted for in the coming election.

Obviously this scapegoating of innocent passengers is part of a quota system. It has to make the law enforcement officers with any iota of any integrity sick to their stomachs to have to do this in order to keep their jobs.

The quota system breeds further mistrust in the general population, cynicism -and racism- in law enforcement. A friend who is a police officer told me how corrupting the quota system is in NYC and how real criminals are avoided because an officer may do an easier collar, an arrest, or issue a ticket to some poor schnook who was drinking a beer on a door stoop or dropped a coffee cup lid because it is just a matter of filling up the quota, not real police work.

This is an infringement of our rights and waste of our taxpayer dollars.
posted by nickyskye at 7:48 PM on July 24, 2006

Truth be know, I bet this is where we got the whole Miami Terrorists issue.
posted by Unregistered User at 7:53 PM on July 24, 2006

Not till the folks in the fly-over states get put on various lists impeding their rights to buy cheap consumer eolectronics and SUV's will this shit stop.

Besides voting for the other party, who are also supporters of this crap, how do we stop this?
posted by photoslob at 8:03 PM on July 24, 2006

Hmm, no names named, not even the manager(s) who signed the memo(s), but it's on the Intarwebs, so it must be true.
posted by mischief at 8:04 PM on July 24, 2006

"Time to write our officials, representatives, Congressman"...

And herein lies the problem... as long as we act as if that mattered, it will shield us from the reality that it never has.

Keep pretending.
posted by Unregistered User at 8:15 PM on July 24, 2006

Sure, mischief, we all know that massive bureaucracies are the most efficient ways to handle things. Performance reviews, based on quotas, would never arise in these well oiled machines. I look forward to being another data point in an increasingly irrelevant database.
posted by ryoshu at 8:16 PM on July 24, 2006

Stalin had quotas of innocents to be slaughtered in the hinterlands, in the name of terror. All for the common good of the coming Workers' Paradise.
posted by longsleeves at 8:43 PM on July 24, 2006

"#15 The true enemy is the line: 'If you haven’t done anything wrong, what do you fear?' The problem with that line, as Schneier has said, is that it assumes that the desire for privacy implies wrong-doing."

Just reply with what I always reply with.

"Well then if I've done nothing wrong for what reason do you need to watch me?"
posted by Talez at 8:44 PM on July 24, 2006

Have a little sympathy, folks -- being an Air Marshal supervisor is hard work!
posted by brain_drain at 8:51 PM on July 24, 2006

What we really need, as soon as possible, is some sort of transportation revolution. Something to free us from the stranglehold the airline industry has on international travel.

I hear IT sure beats flying.
posted by Balisong at 8:59 PM on July 24, 2006

Scopomorphinism: Noun
Associated chronic addiction to scopolamine and morphine.

Recidivism: Noun
A tendency to lapse into a previous pattern of behavior, especially a pattern of criminal habits.

Enantiodromia: Adj
the changing of something into its opposite

Sciomancy: Noun
Shadow boxing, To fight with a shadow
posted by Unregistered User at 9:05 PM on July 24, 2006

Hahaha. Is anyone seriously suprised by this?
posted by delmoi at 9:23 PM on July 24, 2006

That some local reporter got a couple feds drunk and talking shit about work off the record that he then quotes without attribution or proof? Nope, not surprised in the least.
posted by mischief at 9:42 PM on July 24, 2006

That some local reporter got a couple feds drunk and talking shit about work off the record that he then quotes without attribution or proof? Nope, not surprised in the least."

More witty insight from the dude who posted this turd just hours ago.

Do you have anything of any worth besides snark to add to the conversation?
posted by photoslob at 10:19 PM on July 24, 2006

By posting to this thread, you're going to be added to the list OH NOES!!!!1!

Rhetoric and fear mongering bloviating, meet government bureaucracy! Two vile tastes that taste vile together!
posted by moonbird at 10:48 PM on July 24, 2006

Ah, this brings back memories. Of course, the challenge is real. How do you measure the effectiveness of a program like the Air Marshal program? You can't very well measure Number of Terrorist Plots Prevented/Month or Number of Terroirst Masterminds Captured/Escaped+Captured. So you come up with bullshit metrics like this. It's mainly about CYA but it's better than nothing. Right? I still think the Feds are better off hiring terrorists to blow up the airlines. It's messy sure, but Penetration Testing, at least, removes all doubt that you're fucked. But where are all the white hat terrorists?
posted by nixerman at 10:49 PM on July 24, 2006

But where are all the white hat terrorists?

That's funny in a sad, sad way.
posted by ryoshu at 11:37 PM on July 24, 2006

No-one is innocent.
posted by pompomtom at 11:40 PM on July 24, 2006

mischief: how long do you think these guys would keep their jobs (or stay off of the watch list themselves) if they went on the record to a local Denver reporter? The challenge, IMO, is to get this story out there to national media with the money and clout to do a real investigation -- and find someone in the national media with the balls to do it.

Unfortunately, in these fractious times, balls are in short supply, while there seems to be an endless supply of go-along-to-get-along sentiment from all corners that will never make things better.
posted by Dreama at 12:08 AM on July 25, 2006

Wouldn't it be great if American had some sort of Freedom of Information Act which would let you request a copy of this memo if it did indeed exist?

Oh wait, it does!

I am of course assuming they wouldn't lie, and are in fact obligated to cough up such information under the FOIA anyway.
posted by public at 2:07 AM on July 25, 2006

Wouldn't it be great if American had some sort of Freedom of Information Act which would let you request a copy of this memo if it did indeed exist?

Oh wait, it does!


No, wait...

DoD gives $1 million to study how to limit the Freedom of Information Act to Texas University

Carlos Guerra: Pentagon's $1 million grant to St. Mary's raises several questions


for every one way we have to keep our society free, they have 10 to keep us not so much...
posted by Unregistered User at 4:15 AM on July 25, 2006

Twang: Doh! Sorry, forgot to add the /sarcasm tag.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:43 AM on July 25, 2006

Ah, this would explain why I get the full search every time I go to the US. It's probably 'cos I look so harmless that they think I've got something to hide.
posted by scruss at 4:53 AM on July 25, 2006

Do you have anything of any worth besides snark to add to the conversation?

It's not even as if he gave us good snark. His snark is so damn uninspiring. He's got nothing,
posted by the_savage_mind at 4:55 AM on July 25, 2006

Cool, it's like we're living in a P.K. Dick novel!

Or maybe they're trying to hasten the day the funding runs out.
(reiteration:National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity.)
posted by Smedleyman at 7:58 AM on July 25, 2006

The surprising thing isn't that abuses of this kind are happening, it's that the practice of law enforcement, one of the few government functions that Conservatives have traditionally taken seriously, is being systematically destroyed from within along with everything else.

Perhaps the Republicans all read Snow Crash and thought, "America as an anarchic, balkanized, dystopian playground-for-the-rich? Hell yeah!"
posted by Western Infidels at 8:04 AM on July 25, 2006

Once again: If you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:34 PM EST


Pardon? I thought this was the point of the article. That people are being added even though they've done nothing wrong.
posted by eatdonuts at 9:25 AM on July 25, 2006

I'm pretty sure ZenMaster was engaging in sarcasm guys.
posted by the_savage_mind at 9:30 AM on July 25, 2006

... and the left wonders why the right has so many gullible sheep supporting it. The human condition is such that the masses, regardless of 'politics', will accept any allegation as truth without any demand for hard facts.

The so-called 'investigative reporter' in this piece took what is no more than a whiff of a story and fluffed it up into a confectionary entertainment. If he had a memo, then he had a signature and a position title to publish. Better yet, just post the entire memo on the web ala Smoking Gun.

But no, just as the righties fear a terrorist under every rock, the lefties fear a government agent behind every tree.
posted by mischief at 10:01 AM on July 25, 2006

Y'see, the truth of it all is, Al Qaida has already won: they are all employed by the Department of Homeland Security and registered as Republicans.
Anytime anyone does anything that is against their own 'Holy Koran', you are denounced as an infidel and the hell begins.

They've penetrated the government, they've penetrated our businesses, and now they're penetrating *you* ! ! !

You may find your burka over in aisle twelve next to the dusty, crumpled copies of the constitution and bill of rights. You can't miss'em, they're right next to the toilet paper, which they frequently get mistaken for.
posted by mk1gti at 11:05 AM on July 25, 2006

Oh yes, ZenMaster was engaging in sarcasm. Sure, that totally explains everything doesn’t it?
posted by Smedleyman at 1:32 PM on July 25, 2006

ZenMasterThis:

Pardons, I've seen that 'logic' enough elsewhere, I done been spooked.
The trouble with thinking about this stuff is, the abyss seems bottomless.
posted by Twang at 12:53 PM on July 28, 2006