by TChris

After a court rejected the Bush administration's frivolous attempts to keep information about its "no fly" list secret, the TSA and FBI released records in response to an ACLU lawsuit on behalf of peace activists who suspect that they were included on the list because they exercised their right to political expression. The documents confirm that large numbers of innocent travelers are inconvenienced because their names are similar to the ten or twenty thousand names on the list.

[T]he phonetic coding systems tend to ensnare people who have similar-sounding names, even though a human being could tell the difference. Earlier this month, for example, Rep. Donald E. Young (R-Alaska), said he was flagged on the "watch list" when the airline computer system mistook him for a man on the list named Donald Lee Young.

Senator Kennedy had the same problem. At one point, airlines were stopping thirty passengers a day who had names that were similar to a terror suspect's.