#5 TSA Airport Security =HOAX; re:Blizzard Made Me Change My Name

Blizzard Made Me Change My Name: "Cmdrtaco, you think YOU feel 'violated?'
(Score:5, Insightful)
by dpbsmith (263124) Alter Relationship on Wednesday October 26, @10:43AM (#13881131)
(http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith)
How did I feel when the clerk at the airline check-in desk told me that I was on the 'no fly' list? He then corrected himself and said someone with my _name_ was on the 'no fly' list.

You have been using your online name for ten years. I have been using 'Daniel P. Smith' for, uh, my whole life.

The airline ticket clerk takes my driver's license away from me, along with the driver's licenses of my wife, son, and daughter-in law, and he and another airline ticket clerk took them to some inner sanctum and did something mysterious, and after about five minutes came back and said we could be issued boarding passes.

On contacting the TSA I'm told that I can submit a form called a PVIF [tsa.gov] along with notarized copies of three forms of identification (driver's license, birth certificate, passport, etc.). This will accomplish... well, it's not exactly clear what it will accomplish. 'Please understand that the TSA clearance process will not remove a name from the Watch Lists.'

So what does it do? 'Instead this process distinguishes passengers from persons who are in fact on the Watch Lists by placing their names and identifying information in a cleared portion of the Lists.'

And what does THAT do? Well, here's what it doesn't do: 'Clearance by TSA may not eliminate the need to go to the ticket counter in order to check-in. While TSA cannot ensure that this procedure will relieve all delays, we hope it will facilitate a more efficient check-in process for you.'

You're upset because some online game doesn't like the name you've chosen for yourself? Please.

_I'm_ upset because my government doesn't like the name I was born with. And, yes, I'm upset because I can see the look" in the clerk's eyes... and in the eyes of the notary at my local bank stamping the notarized copies (yes, of course I caved... what do you think I am, someone with principles?)... thinking "Well, he's probably OK but, gee, he's on the TSA's list..."

I think I'm going to get a court order to change my surname to Cmdrtaco. Hopefully there aren't too many people on the no-fly list named Daniel P. Cmrdtaco.

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Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book, ba [std.com]
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Hell, Congress made me change mine this year!
(Score:5, Informative)
by ankhank (756164) * Alter Relationship on Wednesday October 26, @11:30AM (#13881718)
(Last Journal: Sunday January 23, @11:06PM)
I've used my family's "nickname" -- rather than a long cumbersome Southern three-part name with a Roman numeral trailing it -- since about age five. Nothing in the world except my Social Security card and birth certificate had the long form.

Until this year when the PeopleSoft company took over my employer's staff database, and had to change everyone's name on record (they say because it has to match the Social Security database).

So Blue Cross simply terminated the health record file (close to three decades worth of records) attached to the name I've been using, discarded it, and created a new file under the Social Security file name -- with of course the same SSI number.

So they bounced a bunch of medical bills reporting "that subscriber terminated his health care coverage." Although they claim they do use the SSI as their internal identifier so they shouldn't have thrown the files away. And they told my medical practitioner's office to discard the old files as well -- and they did, the pea-brains -- and opened new empty files for the new SSI-official name Congress now insists I use.

Keep your own medical history as I have done -- else I'd have no health records.

You worry about an online game? Trying to get your life back after your identity is stolen by your government. Or maybe it's not the government, but PeopleSoft claims that's the reason they did it. Or maybe it's Blue Cross, but they blame PeopleSoft.

It's happened to other people I know too -- blindsided them as well when their files went away.

War of Worldcraft, I think this is.
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Only people with REAL power need to be accountable
(Score:5, Insightful)
by RomulusNR (29439) Alter Relationship on Wednesday October 26, @01:48PM (#13883056)
(http://www.keithtyler.com/)
Nobody ever thinks that *they* need to be held accountable for how their actions affect others. It's always *other people*, people with "real power", who need to be challengeable or redressable.

Accountability is an inconvenience, and a threat to the target's power. Few people *want* to be accountable; it means that you can be penalized for doing something wrong, and people always do wrong things, so its inevitable that accountability will lead to penalty of some sort (however minor); the fear is that an irrationally vigorous redressing will over-penalize you (and this does happen).

The point is... Everyone says that those with power need to be accountable for it, except when it comes to the power *they themselves* hold. GMs aren't powerful -- not *really* powerful -- so they don't see any need to be accountable. Of course, they *do* have *some* power, but it's never "enough" to require accountability. (I'm using GM here as a relevant example, but it's hardly the only valid one -- insert the term of the agent of power you most love to hate here -- site admins, police, CSRs, etc.)

There's an annoying norm of disproportionate contraries, particularly in the online world. A GM making a bad, misapplied, or abused decision on another player will retort to complaints with "it's only game"; in the grander scheme of things (and there is *always* a grander scheme of things, in everything, which most people forget when they apply this adage) it "doesn't really matter". Well, if the actions of a GM aren't such a big deal, then accountability of the GM shouldn't be a big deal, either. But clearly, it *is* such a big deal, to the GM. The use of their power is not important -- but the fear over the questioning of that use *is*.

There's always a touchy-feely reason not to challenge the admins, either. They're volunteers, or they work really hard, or they are really good people, or they "could have done worse". All of these are provided as reasons why the individual should not be able to challenge the people who exert power over them. What this implies, of course, is that being a volunteer, or working hard, or being lenient (while still being wrong) all become licenses to abuse or misapply power.

I guess I can't entirely blame the unfortunate empowered individuals for treating accountability as a personal insult or unfair restriction on them; they for whatever reason don't recognize that they have power and that any power should come with appropriately proportional checks on it. Of course, the people above them, both within the paradigm and within society, are always looking to avoid accountability as well. Sometimes the people succeed in compelling accountability upon them; but sometimes they don't. And rarely does it work in your favor to wilfully invite accountability. You have to do it due to principle and selfless benevolence, not entitlement and self-aggrandizement.

What really is disappointing is that even intelligent geeks can't be expected to believe in the universal application of principles like accountability of power. They're just as susceptible to the allure of power, however minor, as the common masses. So much for geeks inheriting the earth.
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Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
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