Franz Kafka, white courtesy phone please...

(Via Wired)

Our ever-efficient Too Stupid for Arby's Transportation Security Administration seems to have some problems with their terrorist watch list. Specifically, they have people on them that might not need to be on there:

• A person with an Energy Department security clearance.
• An 82-year-old veteran who says he's never even had a traffic ticket.
• A high-ranking government employee with a better-than-top-secret clearance who is also a U.S. Army Reserve major.
• A retired U.S. Army officer and antiterrorism/force-protection officer with expertise on weapons of mass destruction who was snared when he was put back on active-duty status while flying on a ticket paid for by the Army.

Now while I was born at night, I wasn't born last night and I realize that these people, security clearances and all, could be a terrorist with a terrific cover story. Maybe. Unlikely, but it could happen. (I'd definitely keep an eye on the 82-year-old--age and cunning beat youth and vigor most of the time....)

But there are over 400,000 people on this list. Now I'm here to tell you, if there were that many terrorists, we be bumping into them every time we went out to lunch. They'd be causing mass havoc in this country every day.

I don't object to the list, per se. But I do object to a stupid list that is so big that it's worse than useless. It doesn't make us safer, it just inconveniences us, causes problems and pisses people off.

Then again, that what you usually get from government bureaucracies.