Intelligence and Privacy
Airline Watchlists -
The Story of Sister Virgine Lawinger
On April 19, 2002, I was supposed to fly from Milwaukee to D.C. for a weekend of peace-activism opposing military aid to Columbia and the infamous School of the Americas, a U.S. training camp for foreign militias in Ft. Benning, Georgia. Twenty of my group of 37 were refused boarding passes, questioned, and delayed for so long that we missed the plane. We were finally allowed to fly the next day, but we missed an entire day of our activities. Many of the group were high school and college students getting their first experience of participation in the democratic process. Instead they learned how easily the civil rights they take for granted can be usurped. I wanted to know why 20
peace activists including nuns and high-school students would be flagged as potential threats to airline security, so I started what turned out to be a really long process of getting information from the government via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). After months of dialogue with many different agencies, the TSA acknowledged that a file existed, but refused to release it on the grounds that it had been exempted from FOIA. The ACLU appealed this decision and finally got hold of the document - with all the pertinent information blacked out. After all this time and effort, I still can't find out why I was flagged or whether and how I ended up on a terrorist watch-list."
- Sister Virgine Lawinger, Dominican nun (as told to Human Rights First)
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