Baby Terrorist on Board

Here's a very scary thought. Your government is compiling a list that YOU may be on. This list may grant air security the authority to strip search you, detain you for questioning, and bar you from flying altogether. And now we know that babies are on The List.

Ingrid Sanden's 1-year-old daughter was stopped in Phoenix, Arizona, before boarding a flight home to Washington at Thanksgiving. Why? Her daughter was on a "no-fly list" because her name was the same or similar to someone on that list.

Sarah Zapolsky and her husband had a similar experience last month while departing from Dulles International Airport outside Washington. An airline ticket agent told them their 11-month-old son was on the government list. They were able to board their flight after ticket agents took a half-hour to fax her son's passport and fill out paperwork.

The government's lists of people who are either barred from flying or require extra scrutiny before being allowed to board airplanes grew markedly since the September 11, 2001. The lists have swelled from a dozen or so names to more than 100,000 names, according to people in the aviation industry who are familiar with the issue.

Critics including the American Civil Liberties Union say the government doesn't provide enough information about the people on the lists, so innocent passengers can be caught up in the security sweep if they happen to have the same name as someone on the lists. ACLU lawyer Tim Sparapani said the problem of babies stopped by the no-fly list illustrates some of the reasons the lists don't work. "There's no oversight over the names," Sparapani said. "We know names are added hastily, and when you have a name-based system you don't focus on solid intelligence leads. You focus on names that are similar to those that might be suspicious."

So far 89 children have submitted their names to a registry of those mistakenly added to the no-fly lists. Of those, 14 are under the age of 2.