US anti-war activists hit by secret airport ban

US anti-war activists hit by secret airport ban

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles

August 03 2003

The Independent (UK)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?
story=430073

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.