Now you see why they didn't want to turn over the no-fly list
Quote of note:
The Justice Department fought the release of information on the no-fly list on national security grounds, leading a federal judge in San Francisco to admonish government lawyers for making "frivolous claims" to justify the unusual secrecy.
Papers Show Confusion as Government Watch List Grew Quickly
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - The government's list of banned airline passengers has grown from just 16 names on Sept. 11, 2001, to thousands of people today amid signs of internal confusion and dissension over how the list is implemented, newly disclosed government documents and interviews showed Friday.
A transportation security official acknowledged in one internal memorandum that the standards used to ban passengers because of terrorism concerns were "necessarily subjective," with "no hard and fast rules."
More than 300 pages of internal documents, turned over by the Justice Department on Friday as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, provide a rare glimpse inside the workings of the government's so-called no-fly list.
Federal officials have maintained tight secrecy over the list, saying little publicly about how it is developed, how many people are on it or how it is put into practice, even as prominent people like Senator Edward M. Kennedy have been mistakenly blocked from boarding planes.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the federal government last year under the Freedom of Information Act on behalf of two San Francisco women who said they suspected their vocal antiwar protests led to their being banned from flying.
