Are you on a "Master Terrorist List"? Here is an example of what could happen should your name accidently "pop up" on one:

On March 23rd 2002, Mrs. Johnnie Thomas, a seventy-year-old African-American woman, stood at the head of the check-in line at US Airways counter at Boston's Logan airport. Mrs. Thomas was attempting to board a shuttle flight from Logan to La Guardia. Earlier, the ticket agent disappeared with Thomas's passport, and did not return for half an hour.

When the ticket agent returned, she told Thomas that she was cleared to fly, but that, from now on, each time she checked into US Airways she would be required to call the state police, who then would call the FBI, who then would run a check on the date and place of her birth. "It's not your fault," she said. "It's just that your name is on the master terrorist list."

The same thing happened Eight days earlier at LaGuardia airport, and Mrs. Thomas had laughed it off. The agent had told her, "You seem like a real nice lady, but please don't come to me the next time you're at LaGuardia." This second time, though, Thomas was not amused. She had just spent a week on Martha's Vineyard with her grandchildren, and was in no mood to argue that she wasn't a terrorist.

The incident at Logan took place on a Saturday. Monday morning, while at home in Wayne, New Jersey, Mrs. Thomas got busy on the telephone, making notes on each call.

First, Mrs. Thomas called the FBI office in Paterson. "If you want your name off the list, hire a lawyer," said the man who returned her call. He declined to give his name.

She then called the Washington offices of the U.S. senators from New Jersey and Montana (Mrs. Thomas spends time each year in Miles City, Montana, where her late husband grew up) but no one offered a quick solution.

She called a reporter at the Miles City Star, Denise Hartse, who put her in touch with the FBI's counterterrorism specialist in Billings. The agent she spoke to suggested that she call the Federal Aviation Administration. The number the phone book gave for the FAA in Bergen County turned out not to be in service.

Next, she called the Transportation Security Administration, and finally hit pay dirt! A Mrs. Boyd at the TSA informed Mrs. Thomas that she was on an FBI "no fly" list because John Thomas Christopher was one of the aliases that was used by Christian Michael Longo, who had been arrested January 13th at a beach camp in the Yucatán and had been charged with murdering his wife and three children. Longo is now in jail in Oregon awaiting trial. Longo was born in 1974, and has blue eyes and reddish-blond hair. Very well, Mrs. Thomas thought, it's a big country. Could the TSA could remove her name from the list? No, said Mrs. Boyd. Only the FBI could do that.

Mrs. Thomas called a friend who had been in the foreign service, who then called a colleague, who called an FBI counter- terrorism expert, who said that some entities called the N.I.S.D.B. and the N.G.A.T. (and he hadn't a clue what the acronyms stood for) could possibly "scrub the database" to remove her name. "I have no idea what either of them is," Thomas said. "Mrs. Boyd said maybe I should call the ACLU."

Instead, Mrs. Thomas called FBI headquarters in Washington, where she was directed to the Fugitive Publicity Unit, which told her to talk to Supervisory Special Agent Rob Haley, in the Criminal Investigative Division. Special Agent Haley checked with the Oregon FBI and discovered that one airline had been alerted during the manhunt for Longo, but it wasn't US Airways, so he couldn't say how her name had ended up on the list. He said he couldn't speak for "the counterterrorism side of the house," and suggested that she call her local FBI. office. "That's where I started!" she said.

He told her that airline watch lists were generated from many different sources, and that he would check further. However, he wasn't optimistic that he could get her name removed. "He said to be patient," Thomas said.

Mrs. Boyd, meanwhile, informed Mrs. Thomas that four other law-abiding John Thomases had also called to complain.

By this time, Mrs. Thomas had been making calls for two weeks. On April 13th, she checked in at US Airways at LaGuardia for another trip to the Vineyard. This time, to her surprise, her name had the word "error" next to it on the computer screen. The ticket agent consulted briefly with his supervisor and checked her through. "Obviously, somebody had talked to somebody," she said.

Four days later, when she returned through Logan, her name on the screen carried a new label: "Not allowed to fly."

The agent consulted with his supervisor, and Mrs. Thomas was directed to a back room, where her checked luggage was X-rayed. At the security gate, she was told to open her carry-on bag. She was told to open her bag again at the ramp, and she was told to stretch her arms wide for the top-to-toe wand. "Something different happens every time," she said last week. "It's scary."

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