No Fly

I think most people would agree that there’s a good reason to try to prescreen folks flying for possible terrorism security risks. Grabbing peoples’ tweazers is an imperfect art at best, as we know, so trying to deal with the human side of the equation makes sense.

That said, and a few years after 9/11, it’s worthwhile asking how do we make that screening process as accurate and correctable as possible.

ACLU attorney David Fathi also is among those joining the suit. Fathi said he has been stopped from boarding planes at least five times and once at a border crossing, though in each instance he was eventually able to clear up the mistake and continue on his way.
“But try explaining that to your fellow airline passenger after you have been stopped, searched and interrogated in front of them,” Fathi said. “Even after obtaining a letter from the TSA stating that my identity had been verified, I am still subject to delays, enhanced searches, detentions and other travel impediments, all due to the no-fly list,” he said.
But it doesn’t happen every time he tries to fly. “Sometimes I have a completely uneventful experience,” Fathi said. “Other times I have been led away by police. I have been threatened by indefinite detention.”
“I’ve had one officer tell another to put me in handcuffs and take me away,” he said. Such inconsistent application of the list, “shows how deeply flawed the system is,” Fathi said.

That process of improving the system has been hampered (with some reasonability) by privacy concerns.

The TSA declined to comment directly on any pending litigation, but acknowledged, “It points to a very clear fact: We need to advance to the next generation of passenger pre-screening,” said TSA Spokesman Mark Hatfield. “We’re operating with a limited, inherited system that was designed in a different age to deal with a different threat,” Hatfield said.
A replacement, dubbed CAPPS II, has stalled as the TSA scrambles to implement several requirements mandated by Congress to ensure the new, more powerful screening system doesn’t violate privacy rights and provides a clear, unambiguous way for people to have their names removed if they have been unfairly tagged as a security risk.

Which is just what’s being asked for under the present system. That there’s still a need for people to sue to get their names off the list so that they can fly without being (once again) interrogated, delayed, searched, etc. — I think it’s perfectly reasonable for the ACLU to assist in forcing that action along. That’s part of the dynamic that keeps the process on an even keel.