Watch list horror stories

Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008 | 2:09 a.m.

The terrorism watch list assembled by the federal government after 9/11 without doubt is keeping the country safer. We just wish the list were more accurate, and that if a mistake is made, the government would apologize and quickly make things right for the innocent people affected.

Newspapers and TV news broadcasts are full of stories about people mistakenly pulled aside and their travel plans — and lives — disrupted.

CNN, for example, last month reported on a man who served as an Army infantryman in the Gulf War and as a helicopter pilot in the National Guard. After being honorably discharged he was hired as a private pilot. Then he was suspended and faced being fired because his name showed up on the watch list. He was forced to file a federal lawsuit to try to clear his name.

An Associated Press report in July told the story of Jim Robinson, who headed the Justice Department’s criminal division during the Clinton administration. Although he still has top-secret security clearances, he somehow landed on the watch list. The AP said he was working with the American Civil Liberties Union in an effort to clear his name.

On Tuesday, the Las Vegas Sun’s Timothy Pratt reported on a German businessman of Syrian descent who was detained at McCarran International Airport, strip searched and jailed for four days and three nights. No charges were filed against him but he was forced out of the country and now finds himself unable to return. In a federal lawsuit filed in Las Vegas, his American-born wife says she was told by the FBI that her husband’s ordeal occurred because he was mistakenly put on the terrorism watch list.

Last month President Bush had to sign a special bill for former South African President Nelson Mandela to be removed from the watch list. The frequency with which mistaken identity is occurring, and the lengths to which people have to go to clear their names, is wrong. The federal government should make it a priority to fix this.