"In the 1985 dystopian science fiction movie Brazil the plot centers on the authorities' apprehension of an innocent man named Archibald Buttle.
He was mistaken for the outlaw, Archibald Tuttle, after a fly landed on a printer head in a government office, thus causing the "T" to print as a "B" on the arrest warrant.
...Same goes with those "no fly" lists that the Transportation Security Administration uses to keep suspected terrorists off airplanes.
The lists and their criteria are secret.
There's no due process, meaning that if you get pulled out of line you have no way to appeal that decision. The New York Times reported on an 8-year-old who a few years ago was stuck on a TSA "watch" list.
Often, people with names similar to someone else's—think Buttle versus Tuttle—get stopped.
Liberals can be just as unconcerned as conservatives over the veracity of these lists.
...No one wants dangerous people to have access to an arsenal, but we again run up against the problem of lists.
Anyone who has compiled lists realizes how quickly they become out of date, or how easy it is for a clerk to misspell a name.
An analysis of the APPS list from the state auditor and a gun-rights group found that anywhere from 37 percent to 60 percent of the people on the list actually had a legal right to still own firearms.
In a free society, it's not OK for an innocent person to have guns confiscated or kept from flying because of some mistaken entry on a ledger.
It's infuriating how difficult it is to clear one's name after an error is detected..."
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