Eight-Year-Old 'Terrorist' Thwarted by Airline

Fox News reports:

An 8-year-old boy expecting to catch a plane home is denied entry for appearing on a terrorist no-fly list, reported MyFoxKansasCity.com.

Bryan Moore was set to catch his first plane trip when he arrived at an airport in Cortez, Colorado to fly home after visiting his sister, said the report.

"They almost got me scheduled in and then the lady just bowed her head and said, 'We can't get you on this plane, you're a terrorist,'" Moore said.

...

"It's not really fair that I couldn't get home because another man in the world was a terrorist," Moore said.

Great Lake Airlines eventually cleared up the situation, but the plane had already left, making him wait another day to come home.

It seems that the soon-to-be third grader has more common sense than anyone at the Transportation Security Administration or Great Lake Airlines. How can an airline official not quickly conclude that the Bryan Moore on the no-fly list must be a different Bryan Moore than the 8-year-old Bryan Moore trying to board an airplane? Does Great Lake Airlines use robots as gate keepers?

Why would the TSA even put the name Bryan Moore on a no-fly list without further identification? There must be hundreds of people named Bryan Moore in this country. There is at least one in my small town. In fact, he lives just down the road from me. Perhaps I should keep my eye on him.

I suspect that the reason the TSA puts any name on the no-fly list is to cover their asses; if someone named Bryan Moore blows up an airplane they can say that we were warned. They can't possibly believe that it will deter a determined terrorist. Almost all terrorism incidents are perpetrated by young (but usually not 8-year-old) middle eastern men. Not many of them are named Bryan Moore. Middle eastern people seem to change their names with the weather anyway; when you read about some middle eastern suspect he usually has several aliases.

To be effective, and to prevent stupid inconveniences, a no-fly list has to contain more about the person than just a name. The approximate age of the person is a no-brainer. Lacking a photograph a physical description would be helpful: dark hair, swarthy complexion, angry eyes -- in other words, looks like a terrorist. If the TSA doesn't have more information about a person than just a name, the name shouldn't be on the list.

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