US anti-war activists hit by secret airport ban (fwd)

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2003 22:19:23 -0400 (EDT)
> From: chodge5 () utk edu
> Subject: US anti-war activists hit by secret airport ban (fwd)
>
>
>
> Possiblly of interest to IP......
>
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=430073
>
> The Independent (London)          August 03, 2003
>
>
> US anti-war activists hit by secret airport ban
> By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
> 03 August 2003
>
> After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists
> that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security,
> Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or
> even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special
> scrutiny at airports.
>
> The list had been kept secret until its disclosure last week by the
> new US agency in charge of aviation safety, the Transportation
> Security Administration (TSA). And it is entirely separate from the
> relatively well-publicised "no-fly" list, which covers about 1,000
> people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could
> endanger the safety of their fellow passengers.
>
> The strong suspicion of such groups as the American Civil Liberties
> Union (ACLU), which is suing the government to try to learn more, is
> that the second list has been used to target political activists who
> challenge the government in entirely legal ways. The TSA acknowledged
> the existence of the list in response to a Freedom of Information Act
> request concerning two anti-war activists from San Francisco who were
> stopped and briefly detained at the airport last autumn and told they
> were on an FBI no-fly list.
>
> The activists, Rebecca Gordon and Jan Adams, work for a small
> pacifist magazine called War Times and say they have never been
> arrested, let alone have criminal records. Others who have filed
> complaints with the ACLU include a left-wing constitutional lawyer
> who has been strip-searched repeatedly when travelling through US
> airports, and a 71-year-old nun from Milwaukee who was prevented from
> flying to Washington to join an anti-government protest.
>
> It is impossible to know for sure who might be on the list, or why.
> The ACLU says a list kept by security personnel at Oakland airport
> ran to 88 pages. More than 300 people have been subject to special
> questioning at San Francisco airport, and another 24 at Oakland,
> according to police records. In no case does it appear that a wanted
> criminal was apprehended.
>
> The ACLU's senior lawyer on the case, Jayashri Srikantiah, said she
> is troubled by several answers that the TSA gave to her questions.
> The agency, she said, had no way of making sure that people did not
> end up on the list simply because of things they had said or
> organisations they belonged to. Once people were on the list, there
> was no procedure for trying to get off it. The TSA did not even think
> it was important to keep track of people singled out in error for a
> security grilling. According to documents the agency released, it saw
> "no pressing need to do so".
>
> It is not just left-wingers who feel unfairly targeted. Right-wing
> civil libertarians have spoken out against the secret list, and at
> least one conservative organisation, the Eagle Forum, says its
> members have been interrogated by security staff.
>
> The complaints by the ACLU form part of a pattern of protest since
> the 11 September attacks, with the Bush administration repeatedly
> under fire for detaining people on the flimsiest of grounds in the
> name of the "war on terror". Many Muslims have had a hard time,
> especially if they have a surname such as Hussein.

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