-------- Original Message --------
Subject: ACLU Files First Nationwide Challenge to "No-Fly" List, Saying
Government List Violates Passengers' Rights
Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 15:54:02 -0400
From: BSteinhardt <BSteinhardt_at_aclu.org>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan_at_well.com>
Declan,
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
----- End forwarded message -----
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