Keep them judgments coming
Judge Scolds U.S. Officials Over Barring Jet Travelers
A federal district court judge upbraided the government for using "frivolous claims" to avoid disclosing its list of people who are banned from boarding aircraft because of terrorism concerns.
The June 15, 2004 ruling came in a lawsuit in which the ACLU and others are attempting to determine the criteria the Bush Administration has used to place hundreds of people on "no fly" lists. The plaintiffs are also seeking the names of those persons, and the government defendants – the Justice Department, the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration - have claimed the information is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act because it involves national security information or is otherwise exempt from disclosure.
In his ruling, Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco said that he had privately reviewed the materials at issue and concluded that the government had not proved the information should be kept confidential in many instances. He said the withheld information included much "innocuous information," including much that was available in the public record, and ordered the government to review the material it had withheld and reconsider whether it could be properly exempted from disclosure.
The ACLU has estimated that more than 500 people in San Francisco alone have been barred from boarding places because their names were on no-fly lists; in some cases, their presence on those lists was a result of government error.
