Flying Fiasco for People on Terror Watch List
BROWN: It is a list nobody wants to be on, the government's terror watch list. The feds are taking names of people linked to terrorism, and at the airport, anybody on the list gets thoroughly searched and questioned. And a lot of innocent people with no connections to terrorism somehow get on this list, and face hassles, embarrassment, delays. And, as CNN's Drew Griffin reports, there's no clear way to get off the list.</s>DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATION UNIT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Washington Attorney Jim Robinson is a former assistant attorney general. He's a former U.S. attorney from Michigan. He holds a high level government security clearance, and he's a former law school dean, a husband, a granddad, and American. And he gets delayed if not stopped every time he gets on a plane. Why? Because Robinson is also one of the estimated one million names now on the terror watch list.</s>JIM ROBINSON, ATTORNEY: So it seems, for years now, despite my best efforts to get off.</s>GRIFFIN: Yesterday, Robinson joined the ACLU in Washington to mark what the group calls a ridiculous milestone. A million names the government believes match known terrorists. And according to the ACLU, 20,000 new names like Robinson's are added every month.</s>ROBINSON: That means there must be about 950 to 75,000 people who don't belong on this list, who are somehow caught in the mire of doing this.</s>GRIFFIN: What does it mean? It means, because of his name, he can't check in to flights electronically. He can't check bags at the curb, can't check in at one of the new speedy airport kiosks. Every time he travels, he and a million others need to wait in line.</s>ROBINSON: And see somebody who then has to make a call, and determine that apparently I am not the James Kenneth Robinson who is the cause of my being on the watch list.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where are you going?</s>GRIFFIN: I'm going to Chicago this morning.</s>GRIFFIN: Don't think it can happen to you? It's happening to me.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are on the watch list.</s>GRIFFIN: The watch list?</s>GRIFFIN (on camera): So how did I get on this list? Well, the TSA is adamant it's not even me, even though it is me getting stopped at the airports. The TSA says it's the airline's fault. The airlines say they're just following the list provided to them by the TSA. And coincidentally, this all began in May, shortly after I began a series of investigative reports critical of the</s>TSA. GRIFFIN (voice-over): Eleven flights now since May 19th. On different airlines, my name pops up, forcing me to go to the counter, show my identification. Sometimes the agent has to make a call before I get my ticket.</s>ROBINSON: It's a hassle.</s>GRIFFIN: What does the TSA say? Nothing, at least, nothing on camera. Over the phone, a public affairs worker told me again, I'm not on the watch list. And don't even think that someone in the TSA or anyone else is trying to get even.</s>VOICE OF CHRISTOPHER WHITE, TSA PUBLIC AFFAIRS: So if there's any thought or shadow of a thought that TSA somehow put you on the watch list because of your reporting, it is absolutely fabricated.</s>GRIFFIN: Jim Robinson who served two Democratic presidents says he's trying not to think politics is involved, either.</s>ROBINSON: I don't feel safer because I have to go through this hassle, I can tell you that.</s>GRIFFIN: The ACLU's technology chief, Barry Steinghardt, says the list is so secretive and yet so shoddily put together, it's hard to tell how it's being used or abused.</s>BARRY STEINGHARDT, ACLU: The truth is we really don't know how much is bureaucratic ineptness and how much is, you know -- and how much is political retaliation.</s>GRIFFIN: Even more frustrating than being on it is trying to get off. According to the TSA, you fill out a form online, which I did on May 28th. You then copy personal documents, fill out another form and send them to Homeland Security, which I also did on May 28th. And then, apparently, you wait. Robinson has been waiting now three years.</s>ROBINSON: On May 2nd, 2005, I filled out all their forms, made a copy of my passport, my driver's license, my voter's registration card, put it in a package, and sent it off to TSA. I never heard back, and it certainly doesn't seem to have done me any good at all.</s>GRIFFIN: My wait has apparently just begun.</s>BROWN: Wow, Drew. Well, I don't know whether it's bureaucratic or whether it's political, it's ridiculous.</s>GRIFFIN: Yes.</s>BROWN: And this is supposedly an FBI list, so, what's the FBI saying about all this?</s>GRIFFIN: Well, the FBI says the ACLU made it longer than it is. There is a million names on this list, but a lot of these terrorists have aliases, so the FBI says it's not really a million people on the list. Most of them foreign, most of them living overseas. The FBI also said, though, though this is an inconvenience to some, it's an inconvenience we have to pay for for an anti-terrorism tool that works. The FBI, the TSA insist because of this list, terrorists are not flying and we are safer in the skies. And those of us on this list just have to put up with it.</s>BROWN: All right. So Drew, are you who you really say you are? Or is this whole -- this whole CNN job, it's an elaborate ruse?</s>GRIFFIN: You know, CNN goes over my scripts very thoroughly. And they went over my hiring very thoroughly.</s>BROWN: We're going to watch you.</s>GRIFFIN: So I think I am who I am. I'm not sure.</s>BROWN: All right. Drew Griffin, a great story. Thank you for bringing us that. Appreciate it.</s>GRIFFIN: Thanks.</s>BROWN: Coming up in just a moment, Cindy McCain, and why her family's huge beer business is cashing in again. Her money, her company's influence and the politics. And the controversial cartoon of Michelle and Barack Obama on the cover of the "New Yorker" magazine. Well now, Barack Obama speaks out about it to Larry King, when the ELECTION CENTER returns.