Thousands of travelers mistakenly detained by 'no-fly' list

[JackieO]

Thousands of U.S. airline passengers have mistakenly been flagged by a government "no-fly list" targeting terrorists, but federal officials don't track how often innocent people are detained because there is "no pressing need to do so," government documents show.

The Transportation Security Administration released the information in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of two anti-war activists, who were among 339 innocent travelers detained at San Francisco International Airport because their names were similar or identical to names on the list. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit, documented the SFO incidents through a California Public Records Act request.

After reviewing 66 pages of heavily censored documents released in response to the suit, the ACLU said it found "troubling inadequacies" with the Transportation Security Administration's management of its no-fly list.

The ACLU said the agency failed to track how often passengers were incorrectly stopped and had no protocols for ensuring that people weren't targeted for exercising free speech rights.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/07/24/MN90471.DTL

[revcarol]

1. This is big news.

Remember how you had to have a pass to travel to another part of Russia or to travel between Russia and the other parts of the Soviet Union? I do.Then you could get transportation.

Our government has just eliminated the "pass" part. Now they can deny you transportation for no reason.

So nice we've improved on the efficiency of the Soviet system.