The no fly list - people in the U.S. who are considered security risks are not allowed normal access to air travel

Progressive, The, June, 2002 by Matthew Rothschild

In the case of the Milwaukee activists, "about five or six individuals came up on the watch list," Sergeant Coughlin says. "Although it was time-consuming, and although they were flight-delayed, the system actually worked."

Don't tell Dianne Henke that.

A volunteer with Peace Action, Henke is the person who organized the trip. "We were very upset," she says. "Here we were, going out to lobby, to use our democratic rights, to talk to our legislators, to use our freedom of speech and dissent, and then we're being detained and not told why. We were taking young people and telling them if you use means that are nonviolent and peaceful, your message will be heard. But the fact that we were hampered, that we were detained, was just a totally different message."

Henke doesn't blame the sheriff's deputies. "They were very sympathetic to us, but they just weren't getting the answers they wanted from the other end of the telephone," she says.

It was never made clear to her exactly why they were being detained.

"We were getting all these different stories from the deputies. One possibility was that a UWM [University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee] student had a name, Jacob Laden, that was similar to a terrorists name [Osama bin Laden]. Then another story was that someone had a foreign name that was changed to make it sound more American, Alia Kate, who used to be Alia Torabian. Her father was Persian or Iranian. I've known her all my life," says Henke, who looks-up Kate's number in an old Montessori phone book.

"I was one of the first people in our group to try to check in," says Kate. "When I went up to get my boarding pass, the lady said there were some problems. She said her computer locked up and she had to wait for someone else. And I found out that the someone else was one of the sheriff's deputies on duty. And the sheriff's deputy came and told me I had to grab my bags and follow her for further questioning.

"I was a little scared. I was a little confused. I didn't know what it was about. I was alone and was taken to a building nearby. They sat me down in a chair, and I just waited for fifteen or twenty minutes. They had my driver's license. They asked me what my phone number was and address was. I heard them making phone calls, reading off some stuff on my license. Then they asked me what my nationality was.

"I said I'm half Persian and Italian and German.

"They asked who was Persian, my mother or my father.

"I said, my father, my biological father. I don't even know him.

"They also asked me if I was a U.S. citizen.

"I told them I was.

"They asked me if I was from around here.

"I said yes."

Though one of the sheriff's deputies said "it was just a routine procedure," Kate says they gave her several different explanations for what was happening. "They said it might have to do with increased security in the Washington, D.C., area, or it might have to do with Indonesian terrorists," she recalls.

She says there may have been an element of racial profiling involved, too. "I guess we're looking for Hispanic names," one of the deputies said, according to Kate. She suspects they thought her first name was Hispanic, and she says that two others detained early on, Manuel Sanchez and Isabella Homing, may have been selected for their names. The sheriff's department denies a deputy made that comment about Hispanics. "That did not happen," says Deputy Inspector Sherry Weber. "I believe the deputies didn't really say any of this stuff."