<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/politics/09nofly.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=> The New York Times October 9, 2004 Papers Show Confusion as Government Watch List Grew Quickly By ERIC LICHTBLAU ASHINGTON, 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. 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. He ordered the government to comply with the Freedom of Information Act, prompting the Justice Department to turn over the internal documents to the A.C.L.U. on Friday. Federal officials said they could not discuss the documents Friday because of the pending lawsuit. In general, said Brian Roehrkasse, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, "we have taken numerous steps to refine the no-fly system, including better definition of the criteria for the watch list and putting in place an effective redress system that allows passengers who are mistakenly put on the list to be removed." But Thomas R. Burke, a lawyer representing the A.C.L.U., said the documents raised "some very serious concerns about the criteria the government is using in developing the no-fly list and the internal miscommunication in implementing it." In an internal e-mail message in May 2002, for instance, an F.B.I. supervisor, whose name was deleted, complained that the Transportation Security Administration had made the F.B.I. responsible for pursuing possible matches from the list but had failed to inform the bureau about changes in no-fly security directives. "Despite my best efforts, the T.S.A. just motors along, and I and the agents are being whipped around the flagpole trying to do the right thing," the official wrote. In another internal message in October 2002, an F.B.I. official in St. Louis cited difficulties in getting suspects put on the no-fly list and in coordinating different watch lists. The various watch lists "are not comprehensive and not centralized," said the official, whose name was also deleted. Some people "appear on one list but not the others. Some of the lists are old and not current. We are really confused." Federal officials have been developing a master terrorist watch list to consolidate the no-fly list and nine others kept by different agencies. But a report last week by Clark K. Ervin, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, found serious coordination problems in that effort. The documents released Friday show that the government's no-fly list as of Sept. 11, 2001, had only 16 names on it - fewer than the number of terrorists who hijacked the four airliners that day. Several investigations have criticized the government's failure to put two of the hijackers on watch lists even after their terrorist ties became known. The no-fly list grew drastically after the attacks, and one document in Friday's material said the number of banned passengers ballooned to nearly 600 within about two months. Another 365 names were put on a secondary list that allows them to board a plane after getting closer scrutiny. The two lists had grown to about 1,000 names by December 2002, one document showed. The documents do not give a current total, but a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Friday the names on the no-fly and secondary flight lists total about 10,000, with the no-fly list accounting for "a few thousand." Another government official corroborated that account. Copyrigh -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'