I’M SOMEWHAT SKEPTICAL ABOUT THIS STORY but if it’s true it’s the kind of thing I’m criticizing in my TechCentralStation column today:

Civil rights advocates demanded today that the federal government explain how hundreds of people — some of them vocal critics of the Bush administration — have ended up on a list used to stop people suspected of having terrorist links from boarding commercial air flights.

In a lawsuit filed in San Francisco, the American Civil Liberties Union said government officials had improperly withheld information about how people wind up on the “no fly” list, what steps are taken to ensure its accuracy and how people who are erroneously detained at airports can get their names off the list.

“Without even basic information about the no-fly list or other watch lists,” the lawsuit said, “the public cannot evaluate the government’s decision to use such lists.”

Since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the F.B.I. and federal transportation officials have generated secret lists of people suspected of having terrorist ties who should be stopped and questioned if they try to board an airplane.

I’m skeptical because these stories remind me of the long-debunked (and obviously dubious) Nancy Oden story, (here’s the Snopes debunking page) in which a Green activist claimed to have been detained because of her opposition to the war. (The Afghan War, not the Three Weeks War.)

I hope, of course, that there is a list of suspected terrorists who are questioned when they try to fly. And I note that a lot of people were pretty damned critical of the fact that the Bush Administration didn’t have that sort of list operating before 9/11.

The separate question is whether people are being targeted based on their opposition to the Administration’s policies, rather than suspected links to terrorists. I rather doubt that, but I certainly think it’s a subject on which we should let the sun shine in.

UPDATE: Here, on the other hand, is a truly worrisome arrest.