Associated Press:
WASHINGTON --Thousands of people have been mistakenly linked to names on terror watch lists when they crossed the border, boarded commercial airliners or were stopped for traffic violations, a government report said Friday.
More than 30,000 airline passengers have asked just one agency -- the Transportation Security Administration -- to have their names cleared from the lists, according to the Government Accountability Office report.
Hundreds of millions of people each year are screened against the lists by Customs and Border Protection, the State Department and state and local law enforcement agencies. The lists include names of people suspected of terrorism or of possibly having links to terrorist activity.
Included on the list have been Sen. Ted Kennedy, young children and infants, Bolivian President Evo Morales, and Lebanese parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri.
Feel safer now? Don't.
Associated Press:
OTTAWA -- Canada's prime minister said Friday he will send a formal letter of complaint to President Bush over the treatment of a Canadian terror suspect who was sent to a Syrian prison by American authorities.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper notified Bush of that decision during a telephone call Friday.
The suspect -- Syrian-born Maher Arar -- was exonerated of all suspicion of terrorist activity last month by a Canadian commission of inquiry.
The inquiry indicated that Canadian police told U.S. authorities that Arar was an Islamic extremist suspected of links to al-Qaida. The accusations proved to be wrong and are likely what led the Americans to deport him to Syria.
Rights groups charge that Arar is a classic case of extraordinary rendition -- the U.S. transfer of foreign terror suspects to third countries without court approval.
Arar was picked up in New York in 2002 and tortured in Syria until his release in 2003.
Hooray for freedom...
Tags: news politics terrorism crime Homeland Security Bush Canada torture human rights Maher Arar
