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posted by Cactus on Wednesday February 26 2014, @03:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the making-a-list-and-checking-it-twice dept.

c0lo writes:

An Australian blogger shares his personal experience with orders put on hold by the Australian subsidiary of Element 14 (the former Farnell shop), reportedly based on a watch list maintained by US govt.

From the blog:

The counter person wasn't sure, so checked with someone else who came and wasn't 100% sure, but knew that the system does automatically flag orders based on various identifiers. It could have possibly been one of those stupid US government trade restriction things, because, you know capacitors and opamps can be used by evil terrorists and the like... (International customers have to fill out silly forms with US distributors and manufacturers saying we won't use the parts in nuclear weapons - seriously)

But they enquired further with someone else and the word came back that it wasn't the parts that had been flagged, it was my NAME that was flagged. And they said it was a US government watch list of some description. I was stunned, and it seemed like they didn't quite understand why I was so shocked at this. Because, you know, the whole world has to just sit by and let the US government dictate everything at will.

...

  So lets see if I have this straight - An Australian subsidiary, owned by a UK parent company, listed on the UK stock exchange, has an ordering system that automatically matches generic names against some secret US Government watch list, and flags those orders and puts them on hold, for parts that are already stocked in Australia, are likely not made in the US, and likely have come from the main UK warehouse. Call me stupid, but something doesn't seem right with that...

 
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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:06PM

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:06PM (#7358)

    The blogger's name is Dave Jones. What, are The Monkees on the no-fly list? (and besides Davy Jones died in 2012)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:26PM (#7383)

    Ahh, that's just it!
    "Dave Jones, but he's been dead for years! This guy's a terr'ist impostor!"

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Nerdfest on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:32PM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:32PM (#7387)

    These people should know that there aren't actually any flying monkeys. It's just an expression.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by paddym on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:40PM

    by paddym (196) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:40PM (#7395)

    Davey Jones? Why last week I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean with my friend, Dave Cameron http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140131/09523326 059/david-cameron-says-snoopers-charter-is-necessa ry-because-fictional-crime-dramas-he-watches-prove -it.shtml [techdirt.com] , and he and I noticed that immortal squid-like thing that could unleash the Kraken on the East Indies Trade Company whenever he wanted. The Kraken! I'm not saying the Kraken exists, but should we really wait for the entire trans-oceanic trade to be destroyed before we simply blacklist every Davey-Jones-pirate-wannabee that might unleash the horrible bogeyman that may or may not exist? Not on my watch!

  • (Score: 2) by nobbis on Wednesday February 26 2014, @05:20PM

    by nobbis (62) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @05:20PM (#7411) Homepage Journal
    Maybe they've calculated that x% of the population are called David Jones and they need to fill their quota of x% people persecuted ... y'know just like Uncle Joe's lads [wikipedia.org] did back in the day.

    To all the people who may be thinking of working for any 3 letter agencies - please don't go to the dark side.

    --
    It's easy to look up when your mind's in the gutter
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Koen on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:28PM

    by Koen (427) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:28PM (#7631)

    David Bowie's real name is David Jones, he has chosen the stage name Bowie to not be confused with the singer of The Monkeys. Just to illustrate how common the name is indeed.

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    /. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]