Whew

It was difficult not to blog about this last night, when Chris gave me the good news about his recent run-in with federal authorities (). No charges. Stuff back. Lots of fun stories to tell future children and audiences on the lecture circuit. This was my favorite insight from Chris’s post-mortem on the experience:

The implementation of the no-fly and mandatory-selectee lists is flawed, secretive and in no way transparent. Senator Ted Kennedy was put on the list for a while, Cat Stevens, the wife of the Senator made famous for stating that the “Internet is a series of tubes” has been repeatedly delayed at airports, due to the fact that she shares a name with the now-Muslim singer, and any passenger named Robert Johnson or John Smith is severely inconvenienced when they fly. Yet, at the same time, the 9/11 hijackers, all of whom are dead, are still on the list, while the names of the London liquid bombers were not placed on the list – due to the chance a boarding denial at the airport could tip them off to the fact that they were under investigation.

There are a number of useful links in the original post, so I recommend taking the time to read the full entry. His comments are really thought-provoking, highlighting the differences between political goals and effective practice. I’d like to see a thorough study from a complex systems perspective of security management of airports without top-down regulation.

What’s next for Chris? Some papers to submit, courses to take, and probably a new flood of blog comments to read.