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da ([personal profile] da) wrote2004-12-12 02:30 pm
Entry tags:

On plane trips

31 hours after we left Ontario, we're back. It's beautiful out, huge snowflakes are falling, and both d. and I are exhausted. d's currently singing his 2nd of two concerts of this weekend; I'm doing a few errands like picking up the dog and making dinner, and we'll probably crash pretty early tonight.

In addition to discovering that the only substantially good thing about the city of Baltimore is the food, both d. and I have discovered that our names are on security Do Not Fly lists. So far, it's turned out to mean no more than 20 extra minutes at the start of each trip, as they called in our names and verified- I don't know what exactly, but they let us get on the planes both times. There's some sort of process we can follow to get... onto the Do Not Do Not Fly list? Fly List? I don't really care, so long as it works.

As far as I know, we're flagged by full name, and nothing else, though it's being difficult for me to find out for certain. The list seems riddled with errors, from what I've read online previously.

I did do an interesting experiment just now, which you can repeat.

Go to http://www.melissadata.com/cgi-bin/peoplefinder.asp and put in your name and any state. For my first and last name, and state of birth, it tops out at 100 responses, two with my same age and middle initial. There are at least one close match for most of the friends' names I've tried.

Why, oh why, didn't my parents name me Bartholomew?

[identity profile] melted-snowball.livejournal.com 2004-12-13 05:43 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, it is kind of odd how badly they're doing this. It's similar to credit reporting: with a name as boring as mine, I'm guaranteed to look like I've declared bankruptcy 3 times, or not paid my phone bill, or whatever. It's more than a little infuriating that being tagged as a terrorist will occur comparably. Not for the first time, I'm glad that my name isn't Ahmed or Mohammed. As far as I can tell, this means I'm going to have to keep my passport with me on every US flight I take from now on. But that's no big deal: we need them anyhow.

The Kennedy case did get a fair amount of press here. We don't get all of the US news, but we do get quite a bit. (And I read the NYT, too.)