ACLU Files First Nationwide Challenge to "No-Fly" List, Saying Government List Violates Passengers' Rights

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 16:15:00 -0400
From: BSteinhardt <BSteinhardt () aclu org>

Dave,

Acting on behalf of  seven Americans, including a member of the military, a 
retired Presbyterian minister and a college student the ACLU has filed a 
nationwide, class-action challenge to the government's "No-Fly" list.

The legal papers and other materials about the case can be found at 
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=15430&c=272.

The suit, which was filed today in Seattle, asks a Federal Court to declare 
that the No-Fly list violates airline passengers' Constitutional rights to 
freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and to due process of law 
under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The ACLU is also asking the 
Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which administers the highly 
flawed " No Fly" system, to develop satisfactory procedures that will allow 
innocent people to fly without being treated as potential terrorists and 
subjected to humiliation and delays.

Our suit makes plain, that the individuals we represent "are innocent of 
any wrongdoing and pose no threat to aviation security." Indeed, even after 
several obtained letters from the TSA stating that they were not a threat, 
they were still subject to delays and the stigma of enhanced searches, 
interrogations and detentions.

The No-Fly list has been the subject of intense media scrutiny. Yet the TSA 
denied its existence until November 2002, shortly before the ACLU of 
Northern California filed a Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of 
two local anti-war activists who were told they were on such a list. When 
the government failed to respond, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in April 2003 
and obtained documents that reveal a shoddy process in which government 
agents expressed uncertainty about how the lists should be shared. The 
documents also failed to answer basic questions about the No-Fly list, 
including how names are selected for the list. For more information on the 
documents the ACLU obtained, readers can go to http://www.aclu.org/nofly

Beyond the repeated errors in administering the No-Fly program and the 
inability of air travellers to have those errors corrected, many passengers 
on the No-Fly list have expressed concern that they may have been singled 
out because of their ethnicity, religion or political activity. Their 
concern is heightened by the fact that the lists appear to have been shared 
widely among U.S. law enforcement agencies, internationally and with the 
U.S. military.

Barry Steinhardt
Director Technology and Liberty Program
ACLU



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