Now this is scary. After checking in on one of my all-time fav and probably my only Indian culture / Desi blog in the whole wide world – Sepia Mutiny, I discovered some semi-disturbing news. Apparently some federal air marshals out of Las Vegas are reporting your actions to meet a quota, but of course top officials are denying accusations. The news made its way to Sepia Mutiny via 7News out of Denver where air marshals, whose identities were concealed said they are required to submit at least one SDR a month. Consequences of not making quota is no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments. Hmm…
SDR’s (Surveillance Detection Reports) are government documents that report all things out of the ordinary occurring in the airport and are said to be in place at Las Vegas McCarran Intl’ airport. Behavior that could place an individual on such documents could be almost anything for an air marshal hard up to make quota and get his big bonus. Here’s what ennis at Sepia Mutiny ponders:
“… imagine you’re a Marshal, under serious pressure to say you observed something fishy. Who do you think you’d write up? A white grandmother? A congressional staffer? Or a swarthy young male with a beard, even if he’s really handsome?”
I have to agree with the thinking here and pray there isn’t a ridiculous quota system out there placing innocent people like myself on some homeland security list. I can just see an air marshal glancing down at my feet (in sandals) to discover my tattoo in Farsi only to toss me on some list later on when they haven’t made their numbers.
Think twice about taking photos in the airport or airplane. That too counts as suspicious behavior. And who says our government’s databases aren’t filled with bad information?