Free Republic

SNIPPET: "In fact, Mower said, the pilot described it as "a serious security risk." Mower was unable to see the man who was taken off the plane, she said. " SNIPPET: "Two sources confirmed to Fox News that the man in question, a citizen of Gambia, had been added to the no-fly list while Flight 215 was in the air. The man had already been on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list, which is comprised of more than 500,000 people with even limited ties to known terrorists, one source said."

Even the terrorist's father warned us of how extreme his son is. A Northwest Airlines passenger arriving in Detroit from Amsterdam tried to ignite some sort of substance -- or possibly ignited firecrackers -- during final approach to the international airport in Michigan. The flight originated in Nigeria and that is where the passenger boarded the aircraft. The system has gaping holes throughout, and I expect the holes will be exploited. Terrorists will strike within the borders of the United States at some point. It’s not if, it’s when. This is one clear reason we need to go fight on...

Critics of the government's secret no-fly list scored a potentially important victory Monday when a federal appeals court ruled that would-be passengers can ask a judge and jury to decide whether their inclusion on the list violates their rights. In a 2-1 ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated a suit by a former Stanford University student who was detained and handcuffed in 2005 as she was about to board a plane to her native Malaysia. The ruling is apparently the first to allow a challenge to the no-fly list to proceed in a federal...

McCarthy and Steve Israel Announce ‘No Fly, No Buy’ Act On May 13 Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy and Congressman Steve Israel (NY-02) hosted a press conference to announce the introduction of the No Fly, No Buy Act, which seeks to close the ‘terror gap’ by preventing people whose names appear on the Transportation Security Administration’s terrorist “no fly list” from being eligible to buy guns. At the event, McCarthy and Israel were flanked by law enforcement officials and joined by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence to highlight the importance of keeping guns out of the hands of people that...

Since last summer, dozens of young Somali men have disappeared from the Twin Cities. And the FBI has focused its attention on the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center in Minneapolis. Two of the leaders at that Mosque were put on the so-called no-fly list. One of them is a volunteer youth coordinator named Abdulahi Farah, but he says he's done nothing wrong. "It was a very bad experience," said Abdulahi Farah. He has been the youth coordinator volunteer at Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic center for two years. He's also a Somali outreach worker for the Richfield school district. Last fall he was...

Iraqi Firings: Since 2000, Iraqi forces have fired on U.S. and British pilots 1,600 times. In 2002, Iraqi forces fired on U.S. and British pilots 406 times. Since September 18, just hours after Saddam promised to "allow the return of the United Nations inspectors without conditions" and expressed his desire "to remove any doubts that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction," Iraqi forces have fired on U.S. and British pilots 67 times.

"They almost got me scheduled in and then the lady just bowed her head and said, 'We cant get you on this plane, you're a terrorist,'" 8 year old Bryan said. Bryan's name popped up on a national terrorist watch list, red flagging the soon-to-be third grader as a threat to homeland security. "It meant I couldn't get home, so I had to go the next day and I just really wanted to get home," Bryan said.

WASHINGTON, April 12, 2006 – Many U.S. pilots who patrolled the skies of Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War would later put that experience to use during Operation Iraqi Freedom, an F-16 pilot who flew combat missions over Iraq early in the war said here yesterday. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the then-vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, brief reporters at the Pentagon on Sept. 30, 2002, about the continuing attempts by Iraq to shoot down coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones in the north and south of the...

Has anyone ever seen CAIR telling the American Muslims to document instances of extremism and exhortation to mass murder happening in their own communities? Is it just me or CAIR's efforts in defending 'Civil Rights' seem to work only one way?WASHINGTON - Muslim-Americans trying to re-enter the United States after international travel should record instances in which they're singled out as security risks, a civil rights group said Tuesday. The Council on American-Islamic Relations asked traveling Muslims to record any examples of excessive security checks or fingerprinting when returning from a religious conference in Canada this weekend or from the...

WASHINGTON - Infants have been stopped from boarding planes at airports throughout the U.S. because their names are the same as or similar to those of possible terrorists on the government's "no-fly list." It sounds like a joke, but it's not funny to parents who miss flights while scrambling to have babies' passports and other documents faxed. Ingrid Sanden's 1-year-old daughter was stopped in Phoenix before boarding a flight home to Washington at Thanksgiving. "I completely understand the war on terrorism, and I completely understand people wanting to be safe when they fly," Sanden said. "But focusing the target a...

HALIFAX -- Canada will create its own version of a no-fly list as part of a security program critics say is coming far too late and will do little to shield it from terrorist attacks like those last month in London. Federal Transport Minister Jean Lapierre said Friday that officials will begin devising criteria that would identify people who pose "an immediate threat to aviation security," and will work with airlines to stop those people from flying. Lapierre insisted the new program, called Passenger Protect, will not violate the Charter of Rights or the Constitution. But he wouldn't spell out...

WASHINGTON - They have served in our wars, they enforce and adjudicate our laws, they hold top secret security clearances and their entrepreneurial spirit helps energize the economy. Leading lives of ordinary distinction they have little in common, save this: when they fly they are pulled into a demeaning orbit of “suspect until proven innocent” because their names are on a government terrorist watch list. Every day thousands of airline passengers are wrongly identified as being on the Transportation Security Administration list of known or potential threats to commercial aviation. Actually, there are two lists. One is the hardcore "No...

SEATTLE -- A Justice Department lawyer on Thursday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that alleges the government's handling of its "no-fly" list violates air travelers' rights. The American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit says the government has put in place insufficient safeguards to ensure that people with names similar to those on the list aren't treated with suspicion because of mistaken identity. The seven plaintiffs say they have been repeatedly stopped at airports and questioned for as long as an hour before being allowed to board flights. Joseph W. LoBue, representing the government, told U.S. District Judge Thomas...

April 4, 2002, 3:21 PM EST WASHINGTON -- Pilots have flown through the prohibited airspace protecting the White House at least 94 times over the past decade, illustrating the challenges of thwarting a terrorist airstrike on the nation's capital. Even with military jets patrolling the skies, four commercial airliners and a medical helicopter have crossed into Washington's no-fly zone since the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings, Federal Aviation Administration officials say. The latest was on Monday. In most cases, pilots who violated the airspace protecting the White House, vice presidential mansion and Capitol have gotten penalties less severe than a parking...