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Bethnai -> The Case of Ibrahim v. Department of Homeland Security (9/29/2008 11:07:46 PM)
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The "no fly" list is composed of the names of several hundred thousand travelers who are deemed to pose a risk of terrorism or another type of security threat and therefore will be prevented from ever boarding a plane. (In contrast, the passengers who appear on the "selectee" list will be asked to undergo additional searches before flying). These lists emerged in the 1990s but were expanded significantly in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Civil liberties groups have argued persuasively that the lists are rife with errors (especially when multiple persons share the same name) and lack meaningful procedural checks. In response to complaints, the TSA eventually established an ombudsman's office to review passengers' claims that they were mistakenly listed. Its findings were shocking: In December 2005, the Director of the TSA Redress Office admitted that over 30,000 people have wrongly matched the list since September 11, 2001 (as I discussed in a previous column).
Those mistakes can have serious consequences: An April 2006 report by DHS's Privacy Office stated that "individuals who are mistakenly put on watch lists or who are misidentified as being on these lists can potentially face consequences ranging from inconvenience and delay to loss of liberty."
Unfortunately, according to the director of TSA's Redress Office, some airline passengers report that, even after they are cleared, they still continue to have problems. Even those who display an official TSA letter stating they have been delisted may find that the letter is disregarded at the airport.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20080911.html
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