[IP] more on Why's a Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel on the"No-Fly" List?]

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
Date: February 27, 2006 11:47:30 AM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: Krulwich <krulwich@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] mo Why's a Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel on  
the"No-Fly" List?]

Bruce points out, correctly, that this sort of system is bound to
produce false positives.  I could argue with that point -- too many
false positives render a security system useless, too -- but there's a
deeper issue.  The orignal article noted that Lt. Col. Robert Johnson
is "an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq" who is politically active
against an administration supporter.  The question that's really being
asked is whether he's being singled out *because* he's an opponent of
the administration, and that the well-known false positive rate of the
no-fly list is just cover.

Is this possible?  Depending on yuor politics, you may or may not
believe that the administration is abusing the machinery of government
in other ways; rather than get into a shouting match now, I'll point to
historical precedent: the Nixon-era abuses of power.  See
http://nixon.archives.gov/find/tapes/watergate/aogp/release2.html and
in particular the first entry under "Topics".

Government incompetence is bad, especially about security.  Government
evil is worse.

		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb




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