Andrew Gumbel writes in The (U.K.) Independent that next time you take a plane trip, be aware that you may be on a secret government list. The government has finally admitted it’s been keeping a list of anti-war activists, and targeting them for extra airport security checks.
People who protested the Iraq war have begun to notice they?re being singled out at the airport. The Transportation Security Administration finally admitted the list exists in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Rebecca Gordon and Jan Adams of San Francisco, who were detained at the airport last fall and told they were on an FBI no-fly list. Gordon and Adams work for a small magazine called War Times, have never been arrested, and do not have criminal records.
A list kept by security personnel at the Oakland airport is 88 pages long. More than 300 people have been subjected to special searches and questioning at the San Francisco airport, and another 24 at Oakland, according to police records. A constitutional lawyer has been strip-searched several times and a 71-year-old nun from Milwaukee was prevented from flying to Washington to join an anti-war protest.
Who’s running things around here, anyway?
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