Will Compensate For Attorneys' Fees

An agreement has been reached between representatives with the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration, and the American Civil Liberties Union over a lawsuit originally brought about to uncover information about the government's no-fly list.

Under terms of the settlement, the agencies will compensate the ACLU for attorneys' fees in cases involving Rebecca Gordon and Janet Adams, two San Francisco-area peace activists who publish a newsletter critical of the Bush administration. The Associated Press reports both were detained while checking in for a flight to Boston in 2003.

They and the ACLU sued the FAA and TSA under the Freedom of Information Act, demanding the government release information on how people can get on -- and off -- the watchlist.

Neither the FAA or TSA would comment on the settlement.

Documents released by the agencies in October 2004 revealed the government has "two primary principles" -- whether various intelligence agencies view an individual as a potential threat to US civil aviation, and whether enough information has been provided to support that claim -- but no "hard and fast" rules for determining who gets put on the secret watchlists.

As Aero-News reported at that time, the agency also relies on an archaic technology called Soundex (dating back to 1918) to flag names that sound alike, but are spelled differently.

A total of 301 pages of redacted documents also showed the list grew from approximately 16 names on September 11, 2001 to nearly 600 by the end of the year. As many as 20,000

It's somewhat surprising the agencies released any information, as both the FAA and TSA initially balked at providing anything to the ACLU. It took a decision by US District Court Judge Charles Beyer -- who reviewed the secret government data in private and subsequently said the government was making "frivolous claims" about why the information could not be released -- to get the information released.

The ACLU sought compensation for the fees it incurred in defending the two women after it had obtained all the information the organization believed it could get out of the government... including how the government determines how a person can be removed from the list:

When the FBI is convinced the person is, in fact, NOT a threat. How reassuring.

FMI: www.tsa.gov, www.faa.gov, www.aclu.org