“No Fly” List Revelations
Posted by DWT
The Privacy and Security Law Blog is today able to release, for the first time anywhere, the final set of previously secret documents produced by the Transportation Security Administration (“TSA”) and the FBI in connection with a high profile Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") lawsuit involving the government “no fly” list. The documents include the names of TSA employees involved in the administration of the list:
TSA Documents, pages 1-12.
TSA Documents, pages 12-24.
FBI Documents, pages 1-6.
The FOIA lawsuit, brought by two San Francisco peace activists and the ACLU of Northern California, is now history. But an interesting history it is. It’s a tale of the federal government's response to the events of September 11th -- its often unorganized efforts to coordinate the screening of airline passengers using what became known as the "no fly" list. After they were stopped at the San Francisco airport and told that their names were on the government's "no fly" list, Plaintiffs Janet Adams and Rebecca Gordon sued to obtain access to documents maintained by the FBI and the TSA about themselves -- and about the "no fly" list in general. Even in the face of this lawsuit, the TSA and FBI was willing to release few documents to the public.
That all changed when U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco chastised the agencies for withholding certain records. Judge Breyer's June 17, 2004 order prompted the FBI and TSA to produce a variety of previously secret documents, including a TSA PowerPoint presentation that revealed that only 16 individuals were on the government's "no transport" list on the morning of September 11, 2001.
In an order issued June 23, 2005, Judge Breyer recently determined that the names of certain TSA employees involved in the administration of the "no fly" list could not be kept secret. Judge Breyer said: "revealing the names of government employees who are making important government policy serves FOIA's core purpose of contributing to the public's understanding of how its government operates." Neither the government nor the plaintiffs appealed the Court's order.
The final documents produced by the TSA and the FBI are made public for the first time on this blog; the earlier documents ordered released by the TSA and FBI are available here.