Wednesday, May 30, 2007

US probes how TB traveler crossed border (AP)

US probes how TB traveler crossed border (AP): The government is investigating how a globe-trotting tuberculosis patient drove back into the country after his name was put on the no-fly list — and given to U.S. border guards — a major gap in the nation's system to keep the direst of diseases from crossing borders.

We have heard a lot about false positives in the no-fly process, but why would we be surprised about false negatives, except that false negatives are by their very nature not recognized until something goes wrong with them?

2 comments:

Frisky070802 said...

It sounds to me that it wasn't a false negative, but a suckered border agent. The agent knew this guy was on the list but let him through anyway. It hasn't yet been explained AFAIK but I'm guessing the guy said "look, they're overreacting, they told me I'm not contagious, let me in".

We'll see....

Fernando Pereira said...

That's still a false negative when we look at the whole process. A security system must be analyzed as a whole; it's no good that one part gives the right signal if others do not act correctly on that signal. Security has to be designed to deal with wily adversaries. This guy talked his way in, others could too.