"We have a list of about 1,000 people," said David Steigman, the TSA spokesman. The agency was created a year ago by Congress to handle transportation safety during the war on terror. "This list is composed of names that are provided to us by various government organizations like the FBI, CIA and INS.... We don't ask how they decide who to list. Each agency decides on its own who is a 'threat to aviation.'"
The agency has no guidelines to determine who gets on the list, Steigman says, and no procedures for getting off the list if someone is wrongfully on it.
The Salon.com article details the harrassment of other political travelers, including people from conservative organizations that apparently wound up in the computer by mistake or through haste. Writer Dave Lindorff notes that the federal Transportation Security Agency's unpredictable actions "seem to be netting mostly priests, elderly nuns, Green Party campaign operatives, left-wing journalists, right-wing activists and people affiliated with Arab or Arab-American groups."
The 1,000-name "no fly" list referred to by the TSA spokesman is certainly NOT the larger, political list. If that were the case, none of the individuals interviewed by Salon.com would have ever left the ground. The article's subjects are on a different set of lists. It is clear that the airport agents became confused because of a proliferation of lists - data in temporary disarray.
The agency has no guidelines to determine who gets on the list, Steigman says, and no procedures for getting off the list if someone is wrongfully on it.
The Salon.com article details the harrassment of other political travelers, including people from conservative organizations that apparently wound up in the computer by mistake or through haste. Writer Dave Lindorff notes that the federal Transportation Security Agency's unpredictable actions "seem to be netting mostly priests, elderly nuns, Green Party campaign operatives, left-wing journalists, right-wing activists and people affiliated with Arab or Arab-American groups."
The 1,000-name "no fly" list referred to by the TSA spokesman is certainly NOT the larger, political list. If that were the case, none of the individuals interviewed by Salon.com would have ever left the ground. The article's subjects are on a different set of lists. It is clear that the airport agents became confused because of a proliferation of lists - data in temporary disarray.