Mikey Doesn't Like It

After last month's close call in Detroit, the threat of a terrorist attack is still alive in the wake of the Fort Hood shooting and past incidents since 9/11. However, when many think of terrorists code words things like Muslim, male, adult, and such come to mind. What about 8 year old, American born little boy? Well, Mikey Hicks, seems like an ordinary 8 year old boy from Clifton, New Jersey. But he is not viewed as such by the TSA. His mom would say that he is just another ordinary 8 year old boy. The only difference between him and boys his age is he is consistently subjected to heightened security procedures any time he boards a plane as he is viewed as a suspicious person. His only mistake is that Mikey Hicks shares the same name as Michael Hicks, an adult on the terrorist watch list.

Since he was 2 years old, Mikey Hicks has been subjected to being treated as if he was the actual Michael Hicks that airport security is truly trying to thoroughly inspect. Mrs. Hicks has dealt with the seemingly unnecessary treatment of her son for most of his life and especially this past year began to feel extremely annoyed with the way they were trying her innocent son as a criminal. The family had a bit of different experience the last time they went on vacation. Mikey were thoroughly frisked going and going back. A lot more than the man with an bomb in his underwear. Mikey's name is not one of the 2,500 (about 10% being American) on the "no-fly" list, but is on another list of 13,500 individuals who are inspected to a high extent at security screenings. A spokesman from the TSA recently stated that no children are on the no-fly or selectee lists, but did not clear up why Mikey's name is on the latter list. A draw back that was also mentioned was the fact that if someone shares a name with someone on the list they can also be targeted. A scan revealed that that there are 1,600 Michael Hicks. There are over 81,000 people filing grievances because they have been mistakenly targeted for sharing a name with the real suspect.

A Canadian man by the name of Mario Labbe had the same name an actual suspect and endured countless checks at security scan stations at airports. He had enough of the frustrations and changed his name to Francois Mario Labbe and the problem was solved. Others go as far as to misspell their names to avoid being mistaken for actual suspects. TSA is supposed to in the coming months go through data and cross reference names with birth dates and other relevant information to ensure people aren't targeted for sharing the same name as an actual suspect. The thing that should be glaring for this case is the fact that Mikey was born just before 9/11 occurred. Anyone on the list that was born around the same time or later should seriously not be as considered as Mikey is. The Hickes have to deal with extra hurdles that most don't and can continued to make traveling unpleasant as they are delayed getting on and might not even be by each other.

The experience has wore on the Hickes and the fact that it is taken as long as it has to clear up the error has only upset Mrs. Hicks. Mikey tries not to think about, but I'm sure he certainly doesn't like it. He would rather think about toys and not being frisked like a terrorist. Time will see how the program will fix these errors and if Mikey can finally clear his name and enjoy the art of traveling...like most kids should.