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Comment by danieltillett | Hacker News Reader

The woman is not been checked everytime because of her hair - she has been put on the SSSS list [1]. I am a white male with rather boring short hair and I am on the list with American Airlines (most likely because I used to fly round the world regularly - hint TSA - the world is a sphere). Interestingly it is only AA that SSSS me - every other airline is fine.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_Security_Screening...

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When did SSSS start? I thought it was post-2001.

The author writes: "The “Do Search” list isn’t new. It existed pre-9/11. I know because I was on it when I began flying au naturale. Two years before then ... When 9/11 happened, and airport security was raised to code ridiculous, I wondered how much had been missed by screeners leading up to that fateful day. Who had they missed, what had they missed while believing some theory about the threat level of my hair?"

What was the selection criteria before then?

I think your point is very valid, but my own experience (average white male) suggests that it might not necessarily be true. I used to have really long hair, which I would generally leave untied when travelling (mostly for comfort reasons). I started noticing that I would frequently get "random" pat-downs and searches despite not triggering the detectors. It never seemed to happen when my hair was tied back, so I decided to try it out over a number of flights, and fair enough, I would almost consistently get "randomly" searched with my hair untied, and not once was I "randomly" searched with my hair tied. Definitely not proof of anything, but it does indicate some kind of bias.

I was a minor when selected once for SSSS. Is that supposed to happen?

Happened to me once when I was ~11.

Who knows. The entire SSSS and No Fly list is massive cluster-fcuk of incompetence and malice.

I don't see why it shouldn't. At least some American teenagers have joined ISIS and travelled to Syria, along with many more Europeans.

(I'm not supporting the system, but since it exists I don't see why being 18 should affect the implementation.)

I mean, ISIS wasn't around when it happened to me, but I understand your point. Although it's odd to me to bomb-swab 12-year-olds. The most you might find is a kid who really likes to play with fireworks (and I became an amateur rocket scientist a long time after).

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