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-- ACLU Files First Challenge to "No-Fly" List

ACLU Files First Challenge to "No-Fly" List

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When our own government starts to treat all of us like suspects, the ACLU must take action. That's why we have filed suit today against a Bush administration practice that is trapping innocent people in a web of harassment and suspicion.

No one knows how many people are on these secretive lists.

But we do know that people whose names are on the list are regularly pulled aside and detained. They never know when or if they will be permitted to fly. They can't find out why their names are listed or how to clear themselves and get taken off the list.

Our lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Seattle, Washington, is the first nationwide, class-action challenge to the government's secretive "No-Fly" list. The complaint names Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and TSA Director David M. Stone and their respective agencies as co-defendants.

We are asking the 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 individuals represented in the lawsuit are innocent of any wrongdoing and pose no threat to aviation security. But even after some of the plaintiffs obtained letters from the TSA stating that they were not a threat, they were still subject to delays, enhanced searches, detentions, and other travel impediments.


A recent report by the General Accounting Office confirms the widespread sharing of the No-Fly list among various government and private agencies. The focus of the GAO report was the controversial airline passenger screening system known as CAPPS II, which has been touted by some as a replacement for the problematic No-Fly list.

But the CAPPS II system would replace a flawed program with an even more flawed program -- and one that will apply to all Americans instead of just those whose names are put on a list.

Here at the ACLU, the phrase "innocent before proven guilty" still means something and we will not allow this violation of people's basic freedoms to go unanswered.

Our goals are simple:

First, we are seeking justice for the co-plaintiffs who have no idea why they have been singled out by their own government and have been given no recourse to remove their names from the "No-Fly" list.

Second, we must prevent the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) from forcing airlines to provide the government with the travel details of the roughly 100 million Americans who fly.

Third, we must stop our government from further eroding our freedoms by implementing the proposed Computer Assisted Passenger Profiling System (CAPPS II) - a process that will make every American a suspect.

The government may soon be performing background checks on you when you fly.

These checks, part of a government program called CAPPS II, will assign each airline passenger a threat level based on secret criteria and clandestine sources of information. If your threat level is too high, you could be stopped for extra searches or even banned from flying with no way to clear your name.

We all agree that airport security is vitally important, but this system will not make us any safer since terrorists could circumvent the system using simple methods like fake driver�s licenses. Furthermore, since it is based on notoriously inaccurate government databases, this national system would only increase the delays and make it inevitable that innocent Americans -- regular people traveling for work or vacations -- would be delayed, hassled and even prevented from flying.

The nation�s major airlines are not actively opposing this program. They need to hear that you oppose their participation and do not want them to help the government conduct error-prone background checks every time you fly.

Click here for more information.

ACLU to Sue Government Over 'No-Fly' List


By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites)'s officials declined to comment in advance of their planned announcement Tuesday that they would file a class-action lawsuit challenging the list of travelers that the government has barred from flying because they're considered a threat. The civil rights group is representing seven plaintiffs.



Airlines are instructed to stop anyone on the "no fly" list that is compiled by the Transportation Security Administration. The ACLU contends, though, that some people are wrongfully put on the list.


David Nelson is a law-abiding 34-year-old lawyer from Belleville, Ill. But he says the government treats him as if he's a threat to commercial aviation who shouldn't be allowed on a plane.


Nelson says he believes his name appears on the government's "no-fly list," which names people deemed too dangerous to board commercial flights. For Nelson, it's a case of mistaken identity: he's not the David Nelson the government believes is a threat.


Still, he says he's been delayed at airports dozens of times as government officials questioned him.


Nelson is among seven people whom the ACLU brought together in a class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday against the TSA, which administers the list.


"Few would line up in sympathy for a trial lawyer delayed for a few minutes at the airport every time he wants to hop on the plane," Nelson said in an interview. "But surely it affects individuals of color disproportionately, individuals of Arab descent or who practice the Muslim religion, and it's very much those people on my mind when I volunteered to be a named plaintiff."


His colleagues in the lawsuit include a retired minister, a college student, an Air Force master sergeant, a human rights activist and two ACLU employees.


The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, claims the "no-fly list" violates airline passengers' constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and their right to due process. The civil rights group says the government has not put enough safeguards in place to ensure people with similar names aren't treated with suspicion.


"You can't force the same innocent people over and over and over again to shoulder the burden of our lack of decent intelligence," said Reginald Shuford, the ACLU's lead attorney on the case.


TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield said he couldn't comment on the case but is confident the "no-fly" list is legal.


"Our standard procedures and our systems in place, those we've created and those we've inherited, have all stood the legal tests they've been subjected to so far," he said.


The TSA administers two lists: "no-fly" and "selectee." Those on the "no-fly list" are not allowed to board a commercial aircraft. Those on the "selectee list" must go through more extensive screening before boarding.


Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies recommend to the TSA who gets put on the lists, but little else is known about them. The government does not disclose how many people are on the lists or how people qualify to get on or off, nor does it confirm any names on the lists.


Hatfield said the problem of confusing innocent people with those on the lists points to the need for a broader TSA program that can conduct computerized background checks of all airline passengers and to rank them according to their risk of being terrorists.


"If we can create a system, and we believe we've architected one, that has a very accurate identification component, we're going to eliminate the vast majority of misidentification," Hatfield said.


The ACLU and other privacy advocates oppose the program, called the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II.





"It doesn't make sense to replace this deeply flawed program with a larger program that will capture innocent people in larger numbers," ACLU spokesman Jay Stanley said.

The other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are:

_Michelle D. Green, 36, an Air Force master sergeant.

_Alexandra Hay, 22, a Middlebury College student.

_John Shaw, 74, a retired Presbyterian minister from Sammamish, Wash.

_Mohamed Ibrahim, 41, coordinator with the American Friends Service Committee.

_David C. Fathi, 41, senior staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project in Washington.

_Sarosh Syed, 26, special projects coordinator at the ACLU in Seattle.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...id=519&ncid=716

I'd tell the guys who are on the list to hop a train but...
The terrorists are targeting those to.

See ya. Wouldnt want to be ya!

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