De omfattende kontrolltiltakene i USA post-911 har resultert i et byråkrati som med stivbenthet og paranoia tærer på folks tillit og bekrefter at noen må kontrollere kontrollørene.

Det er dette eldgamle og innlysende prinsipp Bush-adminisitrasjonen ikke har villet erkjenne.

Innreisende har fått merke at agentene ute på flyplassene er allmektige. Det sirkulerer mange triste historier om dårlig behandling. Jeg hørte om en tysk kvinne som var gift med en amerikaner og hadde bodd flere år i USA. Hun slapp ikke inn igjen i USA etter en utenlandstur, p.g.a. en bagatell, og måtte sitte flere timer på en celle før hun ble sendt tilbake. Financial Times-spaltister har hatt historier om besøkende med mørk hudfarge, som har vært ute i profesjonelt ærend, men har opplevd en ydmykende og nedverdigende behandling.

Hvor crazy det kan foregå fortalte Edward Kennedy nylig om på en kongresshøring. Han har den senere tid flere ganger blitt nektet å fly i USA. Grunnen er at en terrormistenkt har operert med hans navn. Det har ikke nyttet om Kennedy personlig har stått ved skranken.

Between March 1 and April 6, airline agents tried to block Mr. Kennedy from boarding airplanes on five occasions because his name resembled an alias used by a suspected terrorist who had been barred from flying on airlines in the United States, his aides and government officials said.

Instead of acknowledging the craggy-faced, silver-haired septuagenarian as the Congressional leader whose face has flashed across the nation’s television sets for decades, the airline agents acted as if they had stumbled across a fanatic who might blow up an American airplane. Mr. Kennedy said they refused to give him his ticket.

«He said, ‘We can’t give it to you’,» Mr. Kennedy said, describing an encounter with an airline agent to the rapt audience. » ‘You can’t buy a ticket to go on the airline to Boston.’ I said, ‘Well, why not?’ He said, ‘We can’t tell you.’ »

«Tried to get on a plane back to Washington,» Mr. Kennedy continued. » ‘You can’t get on the plane.’ I went up to the desk and said, ‘I’ve been getting on this plane, you know, for 42 years. Why can’t I get on the plane?’ »

The hearing room erupted in laughter.

Mr. Kennedy said his situation highlighted the odyssey encountered by people whose names had mistakenly appeared on terrorist watch lists or resembled the names of suspected terrorists on such lists. In April, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the government on behalf of seven airline passengers who said they had wrongly been placed on no-fly lists or associated with names on the lists and could not find a way to clarify their identities.

In Mr. Kennedy’s case, airline supervisors ultimately overruled the ticket agents in each instance and allowed him to board the plane. But it took several weeks for the Department of Homeland Security to clear the matter up altogether, the senator’s aides said.