Eight-year-old Mikey Hicks from New Jersey had his first airport pat down at the age of two and has been dealing with extra airport drama ever since. Sarah Zapolsky's 11-month-old was earmarked for special attention at Dulles. Five-year-old Sam Adams was stopped from boarding a flight in San Diego in 2006. John Anderson of Minnesota found out he was on "a list" when he was three years old. Ingrid Sanden's 23-month-old baby set off security flags at Phoenix Sky Harbor in 2005.
Those incidents happened despite the Transportation Security Administrations' assertions that there are no children on the Selectee Watch List or its more serious companion, the No Fly List, that are compiled by the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center and provided to the TSA for enforcement. The problem stems from the fact that the current lists do not specify gender or date of birth. The agency instructs airlines not to deny boarding to children up to the age of 12, or select them for extra security checks, even if their names match those on a list. But amid parental cries for common sense, it still happens. The TSA states that "Airlines can and should automatically de-select any 8-year-olds out there that appear to be on a watch list." But "de-selecting" isn't always easy. It takes time, multiple phone calls, and intervention by supervisors, and it causes travel delays, not to mention stress for both the kids and the parents.
Najlah Feanny Hicks is all too familiar with such travel stress. Her 8-year-old son Mikey has been faced with aggressive pat downs, difficulty obtaining boarding cards, and lost seat assignments for the past six years. His boarding card is also regularly stamped with "SSSS" (code for Secondary Security Screening Selection). "Mikey couldn't check in online, we always had to talk to a supervisor at the ticket counter who had to override things in the computer to get him a seat," says Feanny Hicks. Ironically, his father, also named Michael Hicks, only received his first additional security screening in January 2010.
When Peter Mosher of Worcester, Massachusetts, was printing out boarding cards for the family spring break vacation to the Grand Canyon in April 2010, he wasn't able to print one for his 6-year-old daughter, Allison. The United agent who answered the concerned parent's call informed Mosher that Allison's name was on a "No Fly List." The software engineer was "flabbergasted." Calls to United and the TSA couldn't clear things up. It took the assistance of Senator Scott Brown and several extra hours at the airport to get the whole family on their early morning flight out of Logan.
About getting OFF the damned list?? You better hope your story gets printed on the front page of the New York Times, otherwise, you will be "SOL"
What else can a parent do if they find their child's name is a false positive for one on the No Fly or Selectee Watch Lists? Some families, like the Andersons, give up air travel entirely and set up a website to draw attention to their efforts. Others travel via Canada whenever they can. The Hicks didn't take the fact that Mikey's name was on the list laying down. "We contacted our congressman numerous times, who then contacted the TSA" says Feanny Hicks. "We then filled out the redress application for both my husband and my son." But things didn't start to right themselves until they went to the press. "To be honest, we've been at this for years and it's not until the New York Times wrote their front page story about Mikey and embarrassed the TSA did they do anything to help,"
http://news.travel.aol.com/2010/04/30/are-these-kids-terrorists/I REFUSE TO ALLOW ANY CIVIL RIGHT, be restrained by such a list....
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