No Fly Watch

by **Trifecta** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 6:02 am

<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/branded_b_13272.html">www.huffingtonpost.com/ji...13272.html</a> There are times in which it is easy to be suspicious. We can get to that feeling fairly quickly if we even pay slight attention. I've been trying to get over this odd emotion for at least a year. I can't find any rationale for letting it go, though I want desperately not to have these thoughts. This week last year I was preparing for a trip to Ohio to conduct interviews and research for a new book I was writing. My airline tickets had been purchased on line and the morning of departure I went to the Internet to print out my boarding pass. I got a message that said, "Not Allowed." Several subsequent tries failed. Surely, I thought, it's just a glitch within the airline's servers or software. I made it a point to arrive very early at the airport. My reservation was confirmed before I left home. I went to the electronic kiosk and punched in my confirmation number to print out my boarding pass and luggage tags. Another error message appeared, "Please see agent." I did. She took my Texas driver's license and punched in the relevant information to her computer system. "I'm sorry, sir," she said. "There seems to be a problem. You've been placed on the No Fly Watch List." "Excuse me?" "I'm afraid there isn't much more that I can tell you," she explained. "It's just the list that's maintained by TSA to check for people who might have terrorist connections." "You're serious?" "I'm afraid so, sir. Here's an 800 number in Washington. You need to call them before I can clear you for the flight." Exasperated, I dialed the number from my cell, determined to clear up what I was sure was a clerical error. The woman who answered offered me no more information than the ticket agent. "Mam, I'd like to know how I got on the No Fly Watch List." "I'm not really authorized to tell you that, sir," she explained after taking down my social security and Texas driver's license numbers. "What can you tell me?" "All I can tell you is that there is something in your background that in some way is similar to someone they are looking for." "Well, let me get this straight then," I said. "Our government is looking for a guy who may have a mundane Anglo name, who pays tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxes, has never been arrested or even late on a credit card payment, is more uninteresting than a Tupperware party, and cries after the first two notes of the national anthem? We need to find this guy. He sounds dangerous to me." "I'm sorry, sir, I've already told you everything I can." "Oh, wait," I said. "One last thing: this guy they are looking for? Did he write books critical of the Bush administration, too?" I have been on the No Fly Watch List for a year. I will never be told the official reason. No one ever is. You cannot sue to get the information. Nothing I have done has moved me any closer to getting off the list. There were 35,000 Americans in that database last year. According to a European government that screens hundreds of thousands of American travelers every year, the list they have been given to work from has since grown to 80,000. My friends tell me it is just more government incompetence. A tech buddy said there's no one in government smart enough to write a search algorithm that will find actual terrorists, so they end up with authors of books criticizing the Bush White House. I have no idea what's going on. I suppose I should think of it as a minor sacrifice to help keep my country safe. Not being able to print out boarding passes in advance and having to get to the airport three hours early for every flight is hardly an imposition compared to what Americans are enduring in Iraq. I can force myself to get used to all that extra attention from the guy with the wand whenever I walk through the electronic arches. I'm just doing my patriotic duty. Of course, there's always the chance that the No Fly Watch List is one of many enemies lists maintained by the Bush White House. If that's the case, I am happy to be on that list. I am in good company with people who expect more out of their president and their government. Hell, maybe I'll start thinking of it as an honor roll.

by **sussurus2** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:57 pm

With your indulgence, I would add the following: 1) Very soon after the No Fly list was enacted, the first such case I heard about was from a former girlfriend. Her sister had been listed. A blond, white female, upper class, daughter of a texas oil company executive. She had been very active in the election year, predominantly via email because she had been pregnant, but opposed the re-election of said administration... 2) The person ref'd below gave a rousing speech at the Air Force Acad graduation last year, including being frank about his role in Army Intel during Vietnam, and raised the issue of not checking in one's moral intelligence at the door when signing on to a command in the military. In other words, he encouraged the young newly minted officers to think at least somewhat for themselves. Within weeks he was listed on the NFL. "I apologize for the "form letter" nature of this update, but hundreds of people contacted me after my name was placed on the Federal "No Fly List" last June. All of you have been very supportive, and for that I am very grateful. John Graham, President The Giraffe Heroes Project www.giraffe.org 360 221 7989 UPDATE: JOHN GRAHAM AND THE NO -FLY LIST As you know, I was put on the Federal No Fly Watch List in June. That's a list of persons "who pose, or are suspected of posing, a threat to civil aviation or national security" and it was created to help keep terrorists off airplanes. My name was put on that List with no explanation and no avenue for getting off. I'm allowed to fly, but must receive special permission every time. In early July I wrote an article, "Who's Watching the Watch List," on my situation, and that story was picked up by print publications, TV and radio all over the country; most recently, it was carried by Reuters. It appeared on over 25,000 websites and blogs. The media campaign has understandably died down from this initial flurry. Last month I finally received a reply from the Transportation Security Administration, in response to the pile of notarized documents I mailed them in July, as per their instructions for what to do if you think you don't belong on the List. The TSA reply was an insult to intelligence. It told me they had "verified my identity," whatever that meant, and it did not remove my name from the List. Every time I go to the airport, I am still told that I am on the Watch List and then subjected to extra screening and delays. So I sent their letter back to the TSA, demanding again that their abusive procedures be changed, not just for me but also for the thousands of other innocents Americans stuck on this List. No reply yet and I am not holding my breath. I spent two full days in Washington DC in October lobbying both Senate and House offices. I now have a half a dozen allies in the Congress who know my face and my story. I also met at length with the ACLU, and am steadily coordinating legislative and legal strategies with them. A local Republican friend has offered to get me a hearing at the libertarian Cato Institute. That's important because this is one of the few genuinely nonpartisan issues in the country and I want the support of the Right as well as the Left. This week, I am pressing key Senators from both side of the aisle (Feingold. Craig, Sununu, Murkowski, Durbin, Salazar and Leahy) to filibuster to block the extension of the Patriot Act. My pro bono lawyer in San Diego says he will be ready to launch a civil lawsuit against the government in January. I still have to decide whether that is the best tactic. I worked for over fifteen years on national security affairs and I know it's important to stop truly dangerous people from getting on planes. But the TSA Watch List and its potential successor, the "Secure Flight" program, with their total disregard of due process, are an intolerable abuse of my civil liberties and those of thousands of others. Surely we can create an air traffic protection program that actually stops the people who pose a genuine threat. Your thoughts on all this are always welcome. John Graham " Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=sussurus2>sussurus2</A> at: 1/12/06 10:59 am

by **otherGeoff** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 8:11 pm

I never discussed this with Jeff, but we both wrote for the same satiric magazine. Well before this nonsense, sometime around 1991 or 1992 (the last time I flew into the US), I was stopped in Toronto, at the US border agency station. I was told I was not going to be allowed to proceed, until I answered some questions. The officer was reading from a screen, which he kept moving from my line of site as I tried to see what was going on. Went something like this, as I remember: 'When was the last time you were fingerprinted?' 'I've never been fingerprinted.' 'That's not what I have.' 'Never.' 'Not even when you were in the service?' 'What service? I've never been in any service. What are you reading from (attempt to see).' 'Sorry. I can't answer that. It says you've been in the service.' 'That's crap. What are you talking about? I've never been arrested, never been in any service, never been background-checked for anything.' The fellow said something about his indication that I had military or intelligence service ties, and they wanted the details. At that point I mentioned my involvement with the satiric magazine, and that the Prime Minister at the time was none to thrilled with those of us associated with it. I cracked some joke, and he laughed, still covered the screen, and said he thought I could catch my flight. I did not mention that I had been doing a lot of work on PROMIS before (and was told by the RCMP officer I was being entered into their database PIRS because I had enquired as a journalist about PIRS (I was there for days, in a monitored room, examining boxes and boxes of documents I had asked to see under Access to Information request. I always wondered if, in the early, wonky days of this kind of database and tracking, that PIRS file was given to US intelligence, and ended up in the system. Fortunately, I've never had to go back into the States...but since then, I've not particularly been eager to get pulled aside again for no reason, shadow-boxing grossly erroneous information. Since the Patriot Act, and untold Presidential Directives, I'm damn glad I haven't had to travel south. Twelve or thirteen years ago there was no consquence to the errors; now...well, I'm not willing to gamble my freedom to temp fate.

No Fly Watch

No Fly Watch

Re: No Fly Watch

US entry in the 90s

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