www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/nyregion/14watchlist.html
Enlarge This Image Fred R Conrad/The New York Times Michael Hicks, 8, a Cub Scout in Clifton, NJ, has the same name as a suspicious person. "Meet Mikey Hicks," said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person. Michael Winston Hicks's mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby and she could not get a seat for him on their flight to Florida at an airport kiosk; airline officials explained that his name "was on the list," she recalled.
Newark Liberty International Airport, Mikey was 2 He cried. After years of long delays and waits for supervisors at every airport ticket counter, this year's vacation to the Bahamas badly shook up the family. Mikey was frisked on the way there, then more aggressively on the way home. "Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch -- someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he's a criminal," Mrs Hicks recounted. "A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don't catch him. But my 8-year-old can't walk through security without being frisked." It is true that Mikey is not on the federal government's "no-fly" list, which includes about 2,500 people, less than 10 percent of them from the United States. But his name appears to be among some 13,500 on the larger "selectee" list, which sets off a high level of security screening.
They are given to the Transportation Security Administration, which in turn sends them to the airlines. A spokesman for the TSA, James Fotenos, said that as a rule, "there are no children on the no-fly or selectee lists," but would not comment on Mikey's situation specifically. For every person on the lists, hundreds of others may get caught up simply because they share the same name; a quick scan through a national phone directory unearthed 1,600 Michael Hickses. Over the past three years, 81,793 frustrated travelers have formally asked that they be struck from the watch list through the Department of Homeland Security; Mario Labb, a frequent-flying Canadian record-company executive, started having problems at airports shortly after Sept. By 2005, he stopped flying to the United States from Canada, instead meeting American clients in France. Then a forced rerouting to Miami in 2008 led to six hours of questions. And sometimes, it's quite aggressive, not funny at all." Fed up, in the summer of 2008, he changed his name to Franois Mario Labb. Several Web sites, including the TSA's own blog, are rife with tales of misidentification and strategies for solving them. Some travelers purposely misspell their own names when buying tickets, apparently enough to fool the system.
"If we can't get an 8-year-old off the list, the whole list becomes suspect." Mr Fotenos, the TSA spokesman, promised improvements in a few months, as the agency's Secure Flight Program takes full effect. Under the new system, airlines will collect every passenger's birth date and gender, along with their names. Previously, the airlines cross-checked the lists themselves, using only the names. Certainly, Mikey's date of birth, less than a month before 9/11, should prevent him from being mistaken as a terrorist. A third grader at a parochial school in Clifton, NJ, Mikey recites the drill like the world-weary traveler he is. The ticket agent, peering down at tiny bespectacled Mikey, will apologize or roll her eyes, and call for a supervisor. The supervisor, after a phone call -- or, more likely, a series of phone calls -- will ultimately finagle him onto the plane. But the Hickses are typically the last to select seats and the last to board, which means they sometimes can't sit together.
Al Gore, anticipated additional chaos following the attempted underwear bombing. On the way home last Friday, Mikey's boarding pass showed four giant red S's at the airport in Nassau. Mikey asked his mother not to worry and said he would use his tae kwon do -- he has a junior black belt -- if needed. Mrs Hicks said she wanted to take pictures of her son being frisked but was told it was against the rules.
airport security, remains perplexed about the "list" and the hurdles he must clear. Mikey asked his mother at one point during the interview. Mrs Hicks said the family was amused by the mistake at first. But that amusement quickly turned to annoyance and anger. It should not take seven years to correct the problem, Mrs Hicks said. She applied for redress in December when she first heard about the Department of Homeland Security's program. It's quite clear that he is 8 years old, and while he may have terroristic tendencies at home, he does not have those on a plane."
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