Political Quotes

“nearly everyone in the homeland security community agrees that having a single comprehensive list of terrorist suspects is an important tool in keeping America safe. However, there are flaws in how the terrorist watch list is maintained and used. Over the years, this list has grown to have over 1.1 million entries. With so many different names on the list, it is not surprising that every single day countless Americans are misidentified as terrorists. The errors most commonly occur when an innocent person's name happens to be similar to the one listed in the database. For example, if your name is Al Smith and there is an A. Smith on the list, guess what? You're going to be caught. This is even worse for the millions of American residents who have names which can have different pronunciations or ways of spellings. This wastes time both for law enforcement, because they're using resources investigating innocent people, and for the general public who face the prospect of being wrongfully detained and possibly altogether prevented from going about their business. Most commonly, this affects air travelers who are screened against a watch list more often than anyone else.”