I have a very ordinary name. So, I couldn’t imagine going to buy a car or rent some property and be denied strictly because I share the same name as some person who’s a drug trafficker.

Well, imagine your name is Tom Hassan Kubbany, a middle-aged mental health worker from California. Kubbany has owned homes and has a credit history. However, he recently had a very bad experience when trying to obtain a mortgage. You see, in post 9/11 America, lists are generated, containing the names of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers and, if your name is somewhat similar to those on the list, too bad for you.

The Office of Foreign Asset Control’s list of “specially designated nationals” has long been used by banks and other financial institutions to block financial transactions of drug dealers and other criminals. But an executive order issued by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has expanded the list and its consequences in unforeseen ways. Businesses have used it to screen applicants for home and car loans, apartments and even exercise equipment, according to interviews and a report by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay area to be issued Tuesday.

So, why was Kubbany given such a hard time?

Reviewing his loan file, he discovered something shocking. At the top of his credit report was an OFAC alert provided by credit bureau TransUnion that showed that his middle name, Hassan, is an alias for Ali Saddam Hussein, purportedly a “son of Saddam Hussein.”

The record is not clear on whether Ali Saddam Hussein was a Saddam offspring, but the OFAC list stated he was born in 1980 or 1983. Kubbany was born in Detroit in 1949.

But it gets worse. Check out this case:

Saad Ali Muhammad is an African American who was born in Chicago and converted to Islam in 1980. When he tried to buy a used car from a Chevrolet dealership three years ago, a salesman ran his credit report and at the top saw a reference to “OFAC search,” followed by the names of terrorists including Osama bin Laden. The only apparent connection was the name Muhammad. The credit report, also by TransUnion, did not explain what OFAC was or what the credit report user should do with the information. Muhammad wrote to TransUnion and filed a complaint with a state human rights agency, but the alert remains on his report, Sinnar said.

So, if the name Muhammad gets one flagged, I wonder what Muhammad Ali’s credit report reads.

Instead of really fighting terrorism, we get lazy policies and enforcement tactics that get us nowhere. But, all you have to do is say “war on terror” and people are given a free pass for this kind of stupidity.

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