For an administration that hands out terror alerts like parking tickets, facts have never been something to worry about. But travellers will no doubt take issue with the knowledge that U.S. air marshals, pressured to come up with reports on “suspicious activity,” have been listing just about any poor bastard to make their monthly quotas.

Speaking anonymously to a Denver news channel, several air marshals say they’re basically given the choice of filing a minimum number of Surveillance Detection Reports or foregoing raises, bonuses and job security. While officials vehemently deny there are any quotas required, a 2004 internal memo obtained by Denver’s 7News from the Las Vegas Federal Air Marshal office clearly states that every marshal was “expected to generate at least one SDR per month.”

Another tells marshals not to despair should overtly odd behaviour elude them. “I’m sure if you’re looking for it,” reads the memo, “you’ll see something.” The result, as explained by one marshal, is that “innocent passengers are being entered into an international database as suspicious persons... and they did nothing wrong.”

» Scott Saxon