Taking the Mountain to …
Friday, September 12th, 2008 by
Via CBC:
A Quebec businessman whose name is one of the many that have erroneously landed on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s flight passenger watch list has decided to change his name to avoid lengthy security hassles at the airport.
Mario Labbé, an executive with a Montreal-based record company, says his Canadian passport triggers a red alert on the computers of U.S. customs agents every time he tries to board a flight to the U.S. — which is about once a month for the past seven years.
…
Although Labbé wrote letters to the U.S. department, his efforts were in vain, prompting him to legally change his name.“So now, my official name is François Mario Labbé,” he said.
“Then you have to change everything: driver’s license, social insurance, medicare, credit card — everything.”
Although it’s not a big change from Mario Labbé, he said it’s been enough to foil the U.S. customs computers.
It turns out that terrorists aren’t allowed to legally change their name, so I guess we can consider that security hole firmly plugged.

