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8 year old Mikey on US terrorist watch list
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times
Posted: January 16th, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/nyregion/14watchlist.html
The Transportation Security Administration ... has on its web site a mythbuster that tries to reassure the public. Myth: The No-Fly list includes an 8-year-old boy. Buster: No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list. Meet Mikey Hicks, said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person. Its not a myth. Hickss mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby and she could not get a seat for him on their flight to Florida at an airport kiosk; airline officials explained that his name was on the list, she recalled. The first time he was patted down, at Newark Liberty International Airport, Mikey was 2. He cried. After years of long delays and waits for supervisors at every airport ticket counter, this years vacation to the Bahamas badly shook up the family. Mikey was frisked on the way there, then more aggressively on the way home. Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch someone is patting your 8-year-old down like hes a criminal, Mrs. Hicks recounted. It is true that Mikey is not on the federal governments no-fly list, which includes about 2,500 people, less than 10 percent of them from the United States. But his name appears to be among some 13,500 on the larger selectee list, which sets off a high level of security screening.
Note: For many reports from major media sources on the extreme loss of liberties brought about by the highly touted "war on terrorism," click here.
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