Re: Query YET AGAIN -- A Good Name Dragged Down / Consumers Get Tangled In Terrorist Watchlist

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: David P. Reed [dpreed () reed com]
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:38 AM
To: David Farber
Cc: ip
Subject: Re: [IP] YET AGAIN --  A Good Name Dragged Down / Consumers Get Tangled In Terrorist Watchlist

Is there a specific law that says banks and lenders MUST use this
unreliable dataset to make credit decisions?  I ask because as either a
business tool or as a tool for preventing attacks, this seems to be one
of the most inaccurate and unreliable ways to achieve a goal.

It seems to me that answering that question would help us decide whether
banking risk management decisionmakers or lawyers and policymakers are
the less competent when compared.

(of course the current failures of risk management decisionmakers caused
the subprime crisis, the Bear Stearns meltdown, etc. at least in large
part.  So many unemployed physicists got jobs writing dubious code and
models that proved that risk could be eliminated - perhaps a few got
into the save us from "terrorists" IT business as well).

David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
> From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
> Date: March 20, 2008 12:19:37 AM EDT
> To: undisclosed-recipient:;
> Subject: A Good Name Dragged Down / Consumers Get Tangled In Terrorist
> Watchlist
>
>
> A Good Name Dragged Down
> Consumers Get Tangled In Terrorist Watchlist
>
> By Ellen Nakashima
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Wednesday, March 19, 2008; D01
>
> One man went into a Glen Burnie, Md., Toyota dealership to buy a car,
> only to be told that a name check revealed he was on a U.S. Treasury
> Department watchlist of suspected terrorists and drug dealers. He had
> to be "checked for tattoos," he said, to make sure he wasn't the
> suspect.
>
> An 18-year-old found he could not open an account to accept credit
> card payments for his fledgling technology consulting business
> because his name was similar to that of a Libyan official on the
> watchlist.
>
> A former U.S. Navy officer who served in the Persian Gulf and whose
> father was killed in the Korean War when he was a child, found
> himself locked out of his PayPal account because his name was similar
> to one on the watchlist.
>
> ...
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/18/AR2008031802971.html
>
>
>
>
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