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

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Richard Forno <rforno () infowarrior org>
Date: February 27, 2006 8:11:14 AM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] mo Why's a Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel on  
the"No-Fly"List?]]

(for IP if you like)

Frankly, if the cockpit doors are reinforced (they are) and  
passengers won't
let themselves be turned into a guided missile like they did on 9/11,  
even
if a nutcase got on a plane, chances are they wouldn't be able to  
accomplish
much in the way of trying to hijack the craft before being subdued by  
the
passengers, if not also finding it much more difficult to get into the
cockpit and gain control of the plane in the first place.

But the political reality is that we have to look tougher than we did on
9/10.  But IMO the value of secure-flight lists has dropped as a  
result of
one or both of those two "security improvements" --- but such stories  
as you
posted show that we continue to accept the reassuring illusion of  
security.

But ---- a false positive report making news suggests to the public that
aviation security MUST be working, particularly if it finds 'something'
periodically, right?  Ergo, we look more secure, and the politicos are
happy.

-rf


On 2/27/06 7:18 AM, "Dave Farber" <dave () farber net> wrote:

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [IP] mo Why's a Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel on
> the"No-Fly" List?]
> Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 06:01:18 -0600
> From: Tom Fairlie <tfairlie () frontiernet net>
> To: dave () farber net
> CC: krulwich () yahoo com
> References: <4402E394.1030701 () farber net>
>
> Bruce,
>
> Don't your scientific methodologies go out the proverbial
> window when the President's team is hand-picking certain
> individuals to be on the list? I'm sure we all realize that any
> system such as that employed by the TSA will have problems.
> However, while these problems may exist (and may be quite
> large in scale or scope), they pale in comparison to the more
> capricious examples of NFOBs (non-friends of Bush) being
> manually placed on the no-fly lists as punishment. This makes
> the debate over the dangers of other systems (e.g., TIA) kind
> of moot in my eyes; we can already guess how theses systems
> are ultimately going to be used.
>
> Tom Fairlie
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>
> To: <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 5:33 AM
> Subject: [IP] mo Why's a Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel on the"No- 
> Fly"
> List?]
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [IP] Why's a Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel on the"No- 
> Fly"
> List?
> Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 23:13:35 -0800 (PST)
> From: Krulwich <krulwich () yahoo com>
> Reply-To: krulwich () yahoo com
> To: dave () farber net
>
> Dave, this is the wrong criticism.  Scientifically, from the  
> perspective of
> Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (my PhD area), any good
> methodology that attempts to inductively generalize from a sample  
> set to
> predictions of future set membership, or to deductively generalize  
> from
> a set
> of criteria describing a sample set to predictions of future set  
> membership,
> is going to have false positives and false negatives.  Any  
> methodology that
> had zero false positives and false negatives would be so limited as  
> to be
> useless.
>
> To put this in non-scientific terms, the only way to 100% avoid false
> identifications is to have the system so limited as to be useless,  
> like
> saying
> "suspect someone only if they're carrying fuse wire and muttering  
> 'allah
> akbhar' under their breath."  On the other hand, the only way to  
> 100% avoid
> missing anyone is to have the system so broad that it's useless  
> because it
> suspects everyone, like saying "suspect everyone unless they're  
> wearing a
> purple heart and have had their picture on TV shaking the President's
> hand."
> Any system that attempts to do something intelligent will inherently
> have some
> mistakes in both directions.
>
> That said, there are clear ways to evaluate such methodologies.  What
> percentage of predicted group memberships are clearly wrong?  What
> percentage
> of obvious examples that should be suspected are in fact suspected?
>
> But finding one example, even a prominent example, is  
> scientifically not a
> reason to reject a methodology.
>
> --Bruce
>
>
> --- Dave Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:
>
> > http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=63406
> >
> > The federal officials who are busy assuring Americans that they've  
> > got
> > their
> > act together when it comes to managing port security are not  
> > inspiring
> > much
> > confidence with their approach to airline security.
> >
> > When Dr. Robert Johnson, a heart surgeon who did his active duty  
> > with the
> > U.S. Army Reserve before being honorably discharged with the rank of
> > Lieutenant Colonel, arrived at the Syracuse airport near his home in
> > upstate
> > New York last month for a flight to Florida, he was told he could not
> > travel.
> >
> > Why? Johnson was told that his name had been added to the federal  
> > "no-fly"
> > list as a possible terror suspect.
> >
> > Johnson, who served in the military during the time of the first  
> > Gulf War
> > and then came home to serve as northern New York's first board- 
> > certified
> > thoracic surgeon and an active member of the community in his  
> > hometown of
> > Sackets Harbor, is not a terror suspect. But he is an outspoken  
> > critic of
> > the war in Iraq, who mounted a scrappy campaign for Congress as the
> > Democratic challenger to Republican Representative John McHugh in  
> > 2004 and
> > who plans to challenge McHugh again in upstate New York's  
> > sprawling 23rd
> > District.
> >
> > Johnson, who eventually made it onto the flight to Florida, is angry.
> >
> > And, like a growing number of war critics whose names have ended  
> > up on
> > "no-fly" lists - some of them prominent, many of them merely  
> > concerned
> > citizens - he wants some answers.
> >
> > ...
> >
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