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

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-------- 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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