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TSA and FBI Ordered to Pay $200,000 to Settle "No Fly" Lawsuit (1/24/2006)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.orgCase
Brought on Behalf of Two San Francisco Peace Activists Who Were
Detained at an
Airport
SAN FRANCISCO -- The
federal government today agreed to pay $200,000 in attorneys' fees to the
American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California to end a Freedom of
Information and Privacy Act lawsuit that succeeded in making public, for the
first time, hundreds of records about the government's secret "no fly" list used
to screen airline passengers after September 11, 2001.
"This case helped
shed light on the existence and creation of the 'no fly' list and other secret
transportation watch lists, raising serious questions about its effectiveness
and value," said Thomas R. Burke, a cooperating attorney with Davis Wright
Tremaine LLP in San Francisco.
The ACLU lawsuit was filed in April 2003 on
behalf of itself and two Bay Area anti-war activists, Rebecca Gordon and Jan
Adams, who were told by airline agents at San Francisco International Airport
that their names appeared on a FBI no-fly list.
The Transportation Security
Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation agreed to pay the ACLU,
who along with Rebecca Gordon and Janet Adams, sued when the government refused
to make public information about its secret "no fly" watch list. The
settlement was approved today by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of the
Northern District of California in San Francisco.
"As thousands of
innocent travelers continue to be mistakenly linked to a name on the
government's 'no fly' list, the public should be able to understand and
meaningfully deliberate on whether the secret lists make us safer or are just a
waste of government resources," added Burke.
Frustrated by the government's
stonewalling, Judge Breyer, in a June 15, 2004 order, criticized the federal
government for its "frivolous claims of exemption," ordering the TSA and FBI to
produce some 300 pages of previously withheld records detailing how the "no fly"
list was created and implemented.
The records revealed that the
government watch list was implemented long before any coordinated policy was in
place. The documents reflected, among other things, confusion,
inter-agency squabbling and the admission that the criteria in placing names on
the list are "necessarily subjective" and "not hard and fast rules."
"We
brought the lawsuit because we believe the public has a right to know about the
'no fly' list and other government watch lists," said Jan Adams. "And we
succeeded in doing so by making public hundreds of pages of documents that not
only confirmed the existence of the 'no fly' list, but exposed many of the
serious problems with the secret list. Only by informed public debate can we
make our government accountable and our country safer."
As a result of the
lawsuit, the public learned how many individuals were on the "no fly"
list. As of September 11, 2001, only 16 individuals were identified as
being banned from air travel; the following day, more than 400 were listed, and
by December 2001 there were 594 names. As of December 2002, there were
1,000 names on the list, according to the records the government was ordered to
release. The "no fly" list is now believed to include tens of thousands of
names, according to the ACLU. In November of 2005, the TSA indicated that
30,000 people in the last year alone had contacted the agency because their
names had been mistakenly matched to a name on the federal government's watch
lists.
The settlement was reached only days after the ACLU filed a
lawsuit against the National Security Agency seeking to stop a secret electronic
surveillance program that allows the NSA to monitor and collect e-mails and
phone calls from innocent Americans without court approval. The lawsuit was
filed on behalf of a group of prominent journalists, scholars, attorneys and
national nonprofit organizations who frequently communicate by phone and e-mail
with people in the Middle East. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court
in the Eastern District of Michigan, seeks a court order declaring that the
spying is illegal and ordering its immediate and permanent halt. More
information is available online at www.aclu.org/nsaspying
The
ACLU has also filed Freedom of Information Act requests in 20 states on behalf
of more than 150 organizations and individuals seeking information about FBI
spying. In response, the government has released documents that reveal FBI
monitoring and infiltration by the FBI and local law enforcement, targeting
political, environmental, anti-war and faith-based groups. All the
documents received to date are available online at www.aclu.org/spyfiles
A complete set
of the TSA and FBI documents in today's case are available online at www.aclunc.org
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