Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 3. August 2003 / Timeline August 3, 2003
Version 3.52. August 2003, 4. August 2003
08/03/2003
Andrew Gumbel: US anti-war activists hit by secret airport
ban
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-publicised "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
travelling through US airports, and a 71-year-old nun from
Milwaukee who was prevented from flying to Washington to join an
anti-government protest.
Source: Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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