[IP] Why's a Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel on the"No-Fly" List?
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=63406
The federal officials who are busy assuring Americans that they've got their
act together when it comes to managing port security are not inspiring much
confidence with their approach to airline security.
When Dr. Robert Johnson, a heart surgeon who did his active duty with the
U.S. Army Reserve before being honorably discharged with the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel, arrived at the Syracuse airport near his home in upstate
New York last month for a flight to Florida, he was told he could not
travel.
Why? Johnson was told that his name had been added to the federal "no-fly"
list as a possible terror suspect.
Johnson, who served in the military during the time of the first Gulf War
and then came home to serve as northern New York's first board-certified
thoracic surgeon and an active member of the community in his hometown of
Sackets Harbor, is not a terror suspect. But he is an outspoken critic of
the war in Iraq, who mounted a scrappy campaign for Congress as the
Democratic challenger to Republican Representative John McHugh in 2004 and
who plans to challenge McHugh again in upstate New York's sprawling 23rd
District.
Johnson, who eventually made it onto the flight to Florida, is angry.
And, like a growing number of war critics whose names have ended up on
"no-fly" lists - some of them prominent, many of them merely concerned
citizens - he wants some answers.
...
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