Six-year old Markham Ontario boy on Canadian no-fly list

Syed Adam Ahmed is a six-year old boy from Markham near Toronto, Ontario. Since he was a toddler he has been flagged as a travel risk.

Ralph Goodale

Canada has it very own no-fly list. Of course this title is too crass and unfriendly to describe the list which has the comforting name of Passenger Protect Program. The program has been criticized since it was first proposed and implemented in 2007 notably by Lawyer Faisal Kutty. Although the actual numbers of names on the Canadian no-fly list remain secret, Wikipedia lists the number as between 500 and 2,000. Canadian Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault, is challenging the government's refusal to disclose the information to a Montreal journalist who asked for it under the Access to Information Act. The government claims releasing the information could help plot a catastrophic attack on an airliner. How this could be is not explained. The government also warns that divulging the numbers could hurt relations with allies such as the United States.

Ahmed's family try to shield him from the process in which the family often has to provide extra identification to show that his name is triggering a false positive response from the data base. His mother Khadija Cajee told CBC:

"We try to keep him protected from all this stuff, because we don't want him to feel singled out and stigmatized."

Both she and her husband Sulemaan Ahmed say they never received a straight answer from Staff at the Transportation and Public Safety departments as to what list their son could be on or whether he was actually on any list.

Cajee praises the response of airline agents:"Every agent has been really sympathetic to our situation. There are always eye rolls, they're always in disbelief. A lot of times they think it's my husband so they look at him, but he always says to them, 'No, it's the little guy down there.'"Airline officials suggest that getting an Aeroplan card might help. It works some times but not others. They even suggested changing his name. Why should someone need to change their name when they have done nothing wrong?

The name issue was dramatically illustrated for the U.S. no-fly list when 60 Minutes brought together 12 men named Robert Johnson — they all had travel troubles and delays. Probably, it is because a Robert Johnson had been convicted of plotting to bomb a movie theater and a Hindu temple in Toronto. Even Senator Ted Kennedy had problems that took several weeks of direct contact with top officials to sort out. T. Kennedy is apparently an alias of a suspected terrorist.

Syed is a great fan of the Montreal Canadians or Habs. When his father tried to take him to the Winter Classic game on New Year's Day in Boston, the same old hassle began. Ahmed was able to take a photo of the screen shot of the computer showing Ahmed flagged on the Deemed High Profile list. He tweeted the photo asking Air Canada why the boy was targeted. Hockey news media picked up the story: You wouldn’t think that a 6-year-old boy wearing a Canadiens sweater en route to the NHL Winter Classic in Boston would be deemed a security risk when trying to board an airplane. But that was the case for Syed Adam Ahmed on New Year’s Eve when the boy and his father — who was also wearing a Habs jersey — were about to board an Air Canada Flight in Toronto. And it’s not the first time this has happened.“It happens every time we cross the border by air or land,” Sulemaan Ahmed said about his son, who goes by his middle name, Adam.

With the message retweeted more than 160 times, Ahmed soon heard from his local MP Jane Philpott and also Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale. During the recent election campaign the Liberals promise to review the no-fly list. Goodale said this is already happening and there will soon be a public consultation.Goodale told CBC news:"The reports of Mr. Ahmed and his son, Adam's, experience during their recent travel to Boston is certainly cause for concern and I will be reviewing the specifics of their case with officials in the coming days."Perhaps, the Liberals could start the process by releasing the number of names that are on the list. As the appended video shows American six year olds can make it to the US no-fly list as well.

Boys with same name on no-fly list

The responses of officials are hardly helpful. Change your name! Use some safe name such as Adolf Hitler or Genghis Khan, well maybe not the latter it sounds too exotic and foreign. So the airllines use a number of list and you can't even find out which one you are on. Just as was predicted the list or some list is already creating problems. No doubt the problems occur every day but most do not get reported. I saw a TY show on a US station in which the commentator had numerous people with the same name who were regularly stopped.

2 Canadian boys with same name land on no-fly list
Alistair Butt of Ont., Alistair Butt of Sask., blocked from boarding flights
Last Updated: Saturday, June 30, 2007 | 2:19 PM ET
CBC News
Two boys named Alistair Butt, one from Saskatchewan and one from Ontario, were stopped while trying to board flights last week because their name matches a name that appears on a no-fly list.

The Ontario boy, a 15-year-old from the Ottawa-area town of Orléans, was trying to check in to an Air Canada flight from Montreal to St. John's when he was told he couldn't board.

Alistair Butt of Orléans, Ont., was stopped while trying to board a flight last week in Montreal.
(CBC) The Saskatoon boy, who's 10, was also told he couldn't get on an Air Canada flight, although it is not clear what airport he was stopped at.

Both boys were eventually allowed to board, once they were cleared by security after long delays, but their families fear they will face the same problem every time they try to fly.

"Canada is telling him he's guilty until proven innocent every time he flies," the Ontario boy's mother, Heather Butt, told CBC News.

Heather said an airline official at the airport could not say what no-fly list her son's name is on, and how to get it off.

Continue Article

"We said, 'What do we do?' and then, much to our amazement, she said we could possibly change our child's name," Heather said.

Transport Canada won't confirm if the boys are on a United States no-fly list, an airline no-fly list or Canada's new no-fly list, which went into effect on June 18.

Canada's list, believed to contain fewer than 1,000 names, is operated by Transport Canada. All domestic airline passengers' names are checked against a list of people deemed to be threats.

The list is not available to the public, which means those on it will only find out when they try to travel.

Transport Canada advises families to appeal
Allan Kagedan, a Transport Canada spokesman, advised the Butt families to appeal to the organizations operating all three lists.

"You can approach all three, I suppose, and they can guide you in terms of doing what's needed to try to avoid problems in the future," he said.

He would not confirm which list contains the Alistair Butt name.

Air Canada said it's working hard to prevent delays to passengers and stressed that both boys were eventually allowed on their flights.

"We regret any inconvenience, but security must remain of paramount concern," the airline said in a statement.

Ontario's Alistair Butt, a top student who has won community service awards, said the whole ordeal has angered him.

"I'm accused of something I didn't do. It's not me. I have the same name, that's it."
Related

The perils of a no-fly list

I expect that the privacy watchdogs are whistling in the dark. The US no doubt is urging us to have a no-fly list. The next step will be to harmonise the US and Canadian list but for now probably only a "made in Canada" version is doable. I append an article written several years ago showing a few of the problems of the US list, a list much larger than ours.



Privacy watchdogs tell Ottawa to suspend no-fly list
Last Updated: Thursday, June 28, 2007 | 6:16 PM ET
CBC News
Privacy commissioners and ombudsmen from across the country say they want the federal government to suspend its no-fly list until stronger privacy protection measures are put in place.

At a meeting in Fredericton on Thursday, the officials issued a joint resolution that says the list of people considered to be potential threats to security violates privacy rights of Canadians.

They find it "alarming" that Transport Canada, which administers the Passenger Protect program, could be sharing names on the list with other countries and has not provided assurances that that's not happening.

"We're concerned that we're going down a very slippery path, and that in the concern, the legitimate concern, to provide public security to travelling Canadians, that we're not putting in place the appropriate balance and safeguards for privacy and other fundamental rights," New Brunswick ombudsman Bernard Richard said.

The group of privacy watchdogs was unanimous in saying reforms to the program are urgently required to make sure Canadians are not incorrectly listed.

The no-fly list involves "the secretive use of personal information in a way that will profoundly impact privacy and other related human rights such as freedom of association and expression and the right to mobility," they said in the statement.



Short of suspending the program, the officials said, Parliament should at least ensure the list functions under strict ministerial scrutiny with regular public reports to Parliament until a comprehensive public parliamentary review is completed and reforms are made.

Transport Canada's Specified Persons list is provided to all airlines moving people into, out of or around Canada, and includes the name, birth date and gender of anyone the federal government deems a threat to aviation security.

Fewer than 1,000 names are believed to be on the list, unlike its U.S. counterpart, which has grown to contain more than 44,000. The list will not be available to the public, which means those on it will only find out when they try to board an airplane.

Those who believe their names have been mistakenly placed on the list can apply to have their cases reviewed by submitting a validated package containing a written application outlining the reasons for the appeal, along with two documents that support their identity, to Transport Canada's Office of Reconsideration.

A judicial review is the only avenue of appeal if a person is unsuccessful in having the government remove a name from the list.

The US article......./


U.S. 'No-Fly' List Curtails Liberties
Intended as a counterterrorism tool, it doesn't work and tramples on travelers' rights
By Bruce Schneier
Newsday
August 25, 2004

Imagine a list of suspected terrorists so dangerous that we can't ever let them fly, yet so innocent that we can't arrest them - even under the draconian provisions of the Patriot Act.

This is the federal government's "no-fly" list. First circulated in the weeks after 9/11 as a counterterrorism tool, its details are shrouded in secrecy.

But, because the list is filled with inaccuracies and ambiguities, thousands of innocent, law-abiding Americans have been subjected to lengthy interrogations and invasive searches every time they fly, and sometimes forbidden to board airplanes.

It also has been a complete failure, and has not been responsible for a single terrorist arrest anywhere.

Instead, the list has snared Asif Iqbal, a Rochester businessman who shares a name with a suspected terrorist currently in custody in Guantanamo.

It's snared a 71-year-old retired English teacher. A man with a top-secret government clearance. A woman whose name is similar to that of an Australian man 20 years younger. Anyone with the name David Nelson is on the list. And recently it snared Sen. Ted Kennedy, who had the unfortunate luck to share a name with "T Kennedy," an alias once used by a person someone decided should be on the list.

There is no recourse for those on the list, and their stories quickly take on a Kafkaesque tone. People can be put on the list for any reason; no standards exist. There's no ability to review any evidence against you, or even confirm that you are actually on the list.

And, for most people, there's no way to get off the list or to "prove" once and for all that they're not whoever the list is really looking for. It took Kennedy three weeks to get his name off the list. People without his political pull have spent years futilely trying to clear their names.

There's something distinctly un-American about a secret government blacklist, with no right of appeal or judicial review. Even worse, there's evidence that it's being used as a political harassment tool: environmental activists, peace protesters, and anti-free-trade activists have all found themselves on the list.

But security is always a trade-off, and some might make the reasonable argument that these kinds of civil- liberty abuses are required if we are to successfully fight terrorism in our country. The problem is that the no-fly list doesn't protect us from terrorism.

It's not just that terrorists are not stupid enough to fly under recognized names. It's that the very problems with the list that make it such an affront to civil liberties also make it less effective as a counterterrorist tool.

Any watch list where it's easy to put names on and difficult to take names off will quickly fill with false positives. These false positives eventually overwhelm any real information on the list, and soon the list does no more than flag innocents - which is what we see happening today, and why the list hasn't resulted in any arrests.

A quick search through an Internet phone book shows 3,400 T Kennedys living in the United States. Adding "T Kennedy" to the no-fly list is irresponsible, especially since it was known to be an alias.

Even worse, this behavior suggests an easy terrorist tactic: Use common American names to refer to co-conspirators in your communications. This will make the list even less effective as a security tool, and more effective as a random harassment tool. There might be 3,400 T Kennedys in the United States, but there are 54,000 J. Browns.

Watch lists can be good security, but they need to be implemented properly. It should be harder than it currently is to add names to the list. It should be possible to add names to the list for short periods. It should be easy to take names off the list, and to add qualifiers to the list. There needs to be a legal appeals process for people on the list who want to clear their name. For a watch list to be a part of good security, there needs to be a notion of maintaining the list.

This isn't new, and this isn't hard. The police deal with this problem all the time, and they do it well. We do worse identifying a potential terrorist than the police do identifying crime suspects. Imagine if all the police did when having a witness identify a suspect is ask whether the names "sound about right"? No suspect picture book. No lineup.

In a country built on the principles of due process, the current no-fly list is an affront to our freedoms and liberties. And it's lousy security to boot.