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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 7, 2004)
Nation & World News ACLU challenges 'no fly' list of terrorism suspects A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union says airline travelers have been unfairly stopped By Anastasia Ustinova Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT) WASHINGTON — The Bush admin istration's "no-fly" list of tenorism sus pects, used to screen passengers on the nation's airlines, has snared hundreds of innocent travelers and violated their dvil rights, a lawsuit filed Tuesday con tends. The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, charges that seven pas sengers were enoneously stopped, searched and questioned by airline se curity officials because their names were on the list. None were criminals, but they were detained because they had similar names. The ACLU suit charges that this has happened to "hundreds if not thou sands" of travelers. More than 600 mil lion passengers boarded U.S. airplanes in 2002, according to the Air Transport Association, a trade organization. "1 am not a hijacker. I am not a ter rorist. The government has no reason to put my name on a list of suspected ter rorists, " said David Fathi, one of the plaintiffs, who also said he has been in terrogated six times in the last two years. The lawsuit contends that searching and questioning people whose names are similar to those on the list is uncon stitutional, and the ACLU said it in tended to ask a federal judge to halt the practice A spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, which created the list and requires airlines to use it de clined to comment on the suit's allega tions. Spokesman Mark Hatfield said the no-fly list was highly accurate but that sometimes there were "false posi tives" in the screening process. Since just after Congress passed the Transportation Security Act following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, airlines be gan to screen passengers by comparing information about them with the no "They are routinely subjected to humiliating treatment... delayed and interrogated." Reginald Shuford ACLU staff attorney fly list of terrorism suspects. The pas sengers whose names are on the list must go through additional screening and may be barred from flying. The ACLU also contends that some people are placed on the list mistaken ly, violating their constitutional right to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. Once on the list, the ACLU charges, the passengers are stopped every time they fly, yet are un able to correct or even check the gov ernment's database. "Our clients are totally innocent," said Reginald Shuford, the ACLU staff attorney for the case "What happens to them is much more than a minor in convenience. They are routinely sub jected to humiliating treatment... de layed and interrogated." The lawsuit was filed in federal dis trict court in Seattle, where three of the seven plaintiffs live. The ACLU identi fied the plaintiffs as a retired Presbyter ian minister, an Air Force sergeant, a college student, a lawyer, two employ ees of the ACLU and an employee of the American Friends Service in Philadelphia, a Quaker organization. Not much is known about the "no fly" list. The TSA has declined to com ment on how many people are on the list or how it is compiled. David Stone, the ISA's acting admin istrator, assured congressional lawmak ers last month that a new screening sys tem should cure some of the problems with the list. Called the Computer Assisted Pas senger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II, it will reduce errors by comparing passengers' names with information in other governmental and commercial databases. A passenger advocate's office will give customers an opportunity to correct the database. The ACLU seeks assurances that data collected for CAPPS II won't be used for other purposes or retained after the pas sengers' flights. "We have no problem with the gov ernment doing whatever it can to make us safe" the ACLU's Shuford said. "Sim ply what we want. . . is for our clients to be treated just like every other innocent passenger who attempts to fly." (c) 2004, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. Net Detective fails to meet its advertised standards A pay Web site designed to find out private information on people could not find its own satisfied customers By Mike Wendiand Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT) The promise is bold: "Find out the truth about anyone." Click the link to read more, and you'll learn that you can "perform criminal background searches on new friends, or... find lost loves or family members." These are just some of the claims of Net Detective, one of the Internet's most advertised products, sold through e-mail offerings and Web site affiliates since 1996. Harris Digital Publishing Group, which markets the system, claims it has 750,000 happy customers. I decided to invest $29 and see for myself what it offered. The verdict: I am not a happy customer. I thought I'd check out Net Detec tive by contacting some of the cus tomers whose testimonials tout the supposedly amazing number of per sonal details they discovered about others. For instance, there's Marianne Clewiston of Elmira, N.Y., who is quoted on hundreds of Net Detective promotions saying: "I have been telling my friends about Net Detec tive. I have also been snooping on my friends, and they don't even know it. I found out how much alimony and child support my next-door neighbor gets, and that my neighbor across the street has some big credit problems. This is AWESOME!!!" So I ran her name through Net De tective's People Search database. I fig ured there'd be no problem because Net Detective claims it contains infor mation on nearly 200 million people, developed from information con tained in phone directories, motor ve hicle records, voter registrations and many other public files. Zero results. Net Detective couldn't seem to find its own customer. OK, so then I tried Marsha Seiler of Dallas, quoted as saying "30 minutes Better ingredients. Better Pizza Beat the clock BEAT THE CLOCK The TIME you call is the PRICE you pay for a LARGE 1 TOPPING PIZZA (from 6pm-8pm). EXPIRES 4/20/04 Coupon required. Not valid with any other offer or special. $1 charge on delivered orders. Additional toppings extra. Available in original or thin crust. Limited delivery area. Lunch and Late Night Special I Any Large One Topping Pizza for I offer valid 11am-4pm <£ HHI QQ | and after 8pm. ^ M m i EXPIRES 4/30/04 ■airam Coupon required. Not valid with any other offer or special $1 charge on delivered orders. ^ W—eri Additional toppings extra Available in original or thin crust. Limited delivery area after downloading Net Detective I had located my long-lost college room mate and had her on the phone." Nothing. Surely, I thought, I could find Robert J. Carlson of St. Paul, Minn., described as a private investigator with over 22 years' experience who claims Net Detective now lets him "locate hard to find information in minutes that used to take hours or even days." Net Detective found no trace of the investigator. So I called the Minnesota Board of Private Detectives and Pro tective Agent Services, which licenses private investigators. A spokesperson said it hadn't heard of him, either. All these people may indeed exist. But if they do, I couldn't locate them in Net Detective's people-finding database. i--—— It also couldn't find me when 1 typed in my name, even though I'm registered to vote and have a driver's license and own property. I tried an other half-dozen names of friends or relatives. The only ones it found were those who had listed telephone numbers. I could have done just as well by calling telephone information or us ing one of the free programs out there, like Switchboard (www. switch board.com ) or AnyWho (www.any who.com). Net Detective is really a Web site that links to lots of other Web sites. Want criminal information? It links you to your county government, the FBI's Most Wanted site or similar free public'resources. Want bank mptcy info? You're directed to a fed eral court site. Indeed, much of the information Net Detective offers can be found on free public records Web sites. Do a Google search on "public records," and you'll find all sorts of resources providing similar access at no charge. In some cases, Net Detective tries to get you to shell out $9.95 for a three day pass for something called Net De tective Plus that offers "unlimited ac cess" to a criminal database, a Social Security index of deaths, a sexual of fenders database and a database of unclaimed money. Maybe this stuff really is unique. But before shelling out more money, I'd urge you to do that Google search. You can be your own net detective for free. (c) 2004, Detroit Free Press. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. Yo\j A*£ (j?l£ 0186011 It’s easy... Just go to the UO Health Center at 13th and Agate. But don’t miss the deadline. Sign-up runs now through April 16. Review details of the plan on our web page: http://healthcenter.uoregon.edu Any questions? Call 346-3702 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON University Health Center
