Watching the war on terror.(anti terrorism measures managed by Department of Homeland Security)

Cleared at the Airport

On his way home to the United States from Canada in October 2005, Man-jit Singh was stopped at the airport with his family and held for three hours for questioning. Apparently, his name had matched one that was on an anti-terrorism watch list. Singh, a founder of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), was eventually allowed to board a plane, but his experience has become far too commonplace for many Sikh, Muslims and Arabs since 9/11.

Last November, the Department of Homeland Security began trying to remedy the situation by making public a two-page "Passenger Identity Verification Form." Travelers provide personal information like birth date and eye color, along with copies of official documents including passports, birth certificates and voter registration cards. The Transportation Security Administration, a unit of Homeland Security that's in charge of protecting airports, takes the information and tries to differentiate people on the no-fly list that have the same names.

"You had a lot of people on the watch list," said Rajbir Singh Datta, associate director of SALDEF. "But they didn't know how to get off it."

Datta said the form has been available but it wasn't made public until groups like his and other civil rights groups for Muslim and Arab communities communicated with TSA about the problem. In fact, until last fall, many travelers stopped at airports weren't sure why they were being held for questioning or what they could do about it.

The real challenge now, Datta said, is with the airlines. While TSA updates their no-fly list every 24 hours, the airlines use different systems and software so it's difficult to predict how much of an improvement travelers can expect to see. One thing's for sure: filling out the form doesn't take you off the no-fly list. It just serves to help differentiate one Singh from another.

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