Checking it twice dept.; here's johnnie.(The Talk of the Town)(Johnnie Thomas's name on master terrorist list because it is the same name used as an alias by a male murder suspect)

If you happened to take the US Airways shuttle from Logan to LaGuardia on March 23rd, you might have been stuck for a good while behind Johnnie Thomas, a seventy-year-old African-American woman at the head of the check-in line. The ticket agent disappeared with Thomas's passport, and did not return for half an hour. When she did, she told Thomas that she was cleared to fly, but that, from now on, each time she checked in US Airways would be required to call the state police, who would call the F.B.I., who would run a check on the date and place of her birth.

"It's not your fault," she told Thomas. "It's just that your name is on the master terrorist list."

Eight days earlier, at LaGuardia, the same thing had happened, and Thomas had laughed it off. (The agent had told her, "You seem like a real nice lady, but please don't come to me the next time you're at LaGuardia.") The second time, though, Thomas was not amused. She had just spent a fine week on Martha's Vineyard with her grandchildren, and was in no mood to argue that she wasn't a terrorist.

March 23rd was a Saturday. On Monday morning, at home in Wayne, New Jersey, Thomas got busy on the telephone, making notes on each call.

She called the F.B.I. office in Paterson. "If you want your name off the list, hire a lawyer," said the man who returned her call. He refused to give his name.

She called the Washington offices of the United States senators from New Jersey and Montana -- she spends time each year in Miles City, Montana, where her late husband grew up -- but no one offered a quick solution.

She called Denise Hartse, a reporter at the Miles City Star, who put her in touch with the F.B.I.'s counterterrorism specialist in Billings, who suggested that she call the Federal Aviation Administration. The number the phone book gave for the F.A.A. in Bergen County turned out not to be in service.