Over in the US, the "no-fly" list still holds sway, but the reality is that you can fake a boarding pass and the TSA, which is meant to make it safe to travel on airlines (or at least no less at hazard of terrorism than other forms of transport) is powerless to stop people of bad intent creating a duplicate boarding pass with a fake name. And now a Google intern is in trouble for pointing it out.
The point is, as Chris Soghoian explains in "Paging Osama, please meet your party at the Information Desk", the people scanning your boarding pass as you arrive at the airport don't have any access to the flight manifest (of who's travelling on which flight), but they do have access to the no-fly list. It's believed, for example, that Osama bin Laden might, just might, be on that.
But at the gate, where they do have access to the manifest, they don't have access to the no-fly list. So they check your ID there. Straight through, Mr bin Laden! Like the construction work your company's done!
And Soghoian's reward for pointing out this truck-sized (or even terrorist- or criminal-sized) hole in the system meant to safeguard passengers? A medal? A commendation from his local mayor? Nope, a visit from the FBI (although, as this explanatory - hell, it's newsy, let's be straight - post from Boing Boing explains, they didn't arrest him).
(Completely obtusely: is he related, we wonder, to Sal Soghoian, of Apple's Applescript fame?)
