Blacklisting in the Land of the Free

[Ivo Skoric]

So there is a "no-fly" list containing names of people FBI suspects 
may hi-jack planes in the future, and obviously they don't want them 
near a plane.

And there is also "no-easy-fly" list containing names of thousands of 
people that government wants to give some 'third degree' treatment in 
response to their outspoken opposition to certain government 
policies. That list, containing the alphabet soup of the US human 
rights and peace activists, seems to be established solely for the 
purpose of harassment and persecution of the political opponents. As 
such, it is contradictory to American values enshrined in the U.S. 
Constitution, and needs to be abandoned as illegal, the sooner the 
better.

ivo

------- Forwarded message follows -------
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0803-03.htm

Published on Sunday, August 3, 2003 by the Independent/UK 
[http://www.independent.co.uk/]

US Anti-War Activists Hit by Secret Airport Ban

by Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles

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-publicized "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 traveling 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 organizations
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 organization, 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.

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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