Reading Politics

Every Mr. Smith and every Mrs. Müller is a terrorist.

...or so it seems. I read in today's newspaper that 6 of Air France's flights to the US were cancelled because of pure dumbness in communication. The FBI had checked the passengers lists of the respective flights and found names of suspected terrorists.
Problem is, the FBI's list consisted of only last-names, no first, no dates of birth and a bunch of spelling errors. As a result, the suspects included an insurance broker, the owner of a Chinese restaurant, and a little kid.

Granted that terrorist threats are a delicate matter, wouldn't one expect a little more care when there are undoubtedly mostly innocent people affected?
The ever increasing power of an institution like the FBI and its lack of common sense make for a quite scary mixture.

My primary concern is that these massive intrusion of the passengers' privacy won't stop anyone but the cheesiest hobby terrorist.

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

...won't stop anyone but the cheesiest hobby terrorist.

Yes, that too. A lot of those security measures make you wonder if the officials really believe them to be effective. Or if they are just a nice security blanket for everybody, so we all feel just a little bit safer.
And yes, for the cost of sacrificing more and more of one's privacy.