Is the No-Fly List a Blackmail Tool?

Abe Mashal, a retired marine, alleges that the anti-terror measure is being used to pressure U.S. citizens into becoming spies.

Abe Mashal, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, has joined an ACLU lawsuit against the FBI, the U.S. Attorney General’s Office, and the Terrorist Screening Center, alleging that he has been illegally placed on the U.S. no-fly list. Abe Mashal believes that, as part of an FBI effort to pressure U.S. citizens into spying on mosques, he may have been placed on the list simply because he is a Muslim who served in the armed forces. The Council on American Islamic Relations has said that Mashal’s case is hardly unique.

THE MARK: How did all this begin?

ABE MASHAL: In April of 2010, I went to Midway Airport in Chicago because I was hired by a lady up in Spokane, Wash., to go up there and train her dog. When I got to the airport to check in, the lady at the ticket counter took my licence and went in the back for about five minutes. When she came out, I turned around and I was surrounded by about 30 security people and Chicago police. When the lady came back to the counter, she said I was on the no-fly list, that I wouldn’t be able to board with any airline, and that people from the FBI were on their way to speak to me.

I was shocked, because I’d never had any trouble flying before, and I’d been all over. I didn’t know what to think of it.

A few minutes later, the FBI got to Midway Airport and asked me to go in the back to answer some questions. I was very co-operative because I thought it was just a big mix-up. The FBI agent questioned me for about 20 minutes. He asked for my name and Social Security number, and then got into some more invasive questions about my religious background and things like that. And then they told me I was free to go, and that they did not have any more questions for me. And I said, “Well I have some questions. Why am I on this list?” They basically told me they didn’t know why I was on the no-fly list, that even if they did know they wouldn’t be able to tell me, and that there was no way to get off of the list. They did say that I could go to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) website and fill out a redress form, but that even if I did I’d probably still never get off the list.

It was very frustrating because it was like they had no answers.

I filled out that redress form pretty much right away and a few hours later my phone rang, and it was the FBI again. They said there were two agents in a car outside who would like to talk to me about the no-fly situation. They came to my house and I invited them in. They were very friendly and everything, and they actually took out a no-fly list question-and-answer sheet to go over with me. They questioned me about my father’s Arabian background. My mother’s Italian, and they didn’t care at all about her side of the family.

They asked what mosques I had been to in my region, and who I knew that was Islamic or Arab. Then, when I told them I had a military background because I was in active duty in the Marine Corps for four years, they took out another sheet. It was extremely odd watching these two FBI agents working off of cheat sheets.

In the end, they told me the same thing that I had heard before: They didn’t know why I was on the no-fly list. One of the agents actually said to me, “We go through about 10 of these a day.” To be honest, I didn’t think that could actually be accurate, because this is kind of a big deal.