[Vision2020] Our Department of Homeland Security at Work

[Tom Hansen]

>From the Patriot News (Central Pennsylvania) at:

http://tinyurl.com/5vk74j

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Grounded pilot, wife sue over 'no-fly' list
by CHRISTOPHER WINK, Of The Patriot-News 

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http://tinyurl.com/63ow9c
Erich Scherfen, right, and his wife, Rabina Tareen, listen as Witold 
Walczak of the ACLU of Pennsylvania describes the effect of a federal 
flight restriction on his career as a pilot.

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A Gulf War veteran and his wife say they've been unfairly placed on a 
federal list that limits their commercial flight access and threatens his 
job as a commercial pilot. To fight back, the couple, who are Muslim, 
filed a lawsuit today against a host of U.S. government agencies. "We 
don't know why they're on the list. They don't know why they're on the 
list. The government won't tell us why they're on the list," said Amy 
Foerster, an attorney with Saul Ewing, who is providing pro bono counsel 
and working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and 
the Schuylkill County couple on the case, which was filed in U.S. district 
court. 

The suit filed against the U.S. departments of Homeland Security and 
Justice and the FBI, among others, is "unique" because Erich Scherfen, a 
New Jersey native who converted to Islam in the mid-1990s, is a commercial 
airline pilot whose flight privileges were revoked in April, said Witold 
Walczak, the legal director of the state ACLU chapter. On Sept. 1, 
Scherfen will be terminated by his employer, Colgan Air, despite the 
airline's cooperation.

"My livelihood depends on getting off this list," Scherfen said. What list 
he is on and which government entity maintains it is unclear, Walczak 
said. The federal government has declined to acknowledge flight 
restrictions placed on the pilot. 

But Scherfen says he and his wife, Pakistan-born Rubina Tareen, have been 
detained for hours on several occasions in airports and even border 
crossings and been told by airport ticket agents and security personnel 
that they're on a "terrorist watch list."

In order for Scherfen to keep his job, Walczak additionally requested an 
emergency injunction, a move that could provide results as early as today 
but would only be a temporary fix.

"We wouldn't file a suit we didn't think we could win," Walczak said.

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Don't it make you warm and fuzzy all over just knowin' that our Department 
of Homeland Security is on the job?

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college 
students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)


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