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OTTAWA - Canada introduced a no-fly list today to ground air passengers "who may pose an immediate threat to aviation security" and tried to play down concerns that the list could be abused.
Airlines will be obliged to check the names of passengers aged 12 or over against
the list, which was compiled using information from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as well as Canada's counter-intelligence agency.
"Airline civil aviation is a constant target to terrorists ... We have to be extremely vigilant on that front," Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon told reporters.
He said the document contained between 500 and 2000 names. Passengers listed as potential threats can provide further identification and information in a bid to make their flight.
If that fails, they can file an appeal with Transport Canada or the country's various law-enforcement bodies.
"(These names) have been checked, they've been double checked, the aliases have been checked. So we feel quite secure as to the composition of the members who are on this list," said Cannon.
In the United States, officials say more than 31,000 innocent people are stopped each year because their names resemble those on watch lists. The victims have included babies and US lawmakers.
Critics fear Ottawa's no-fly list may be abused and point to the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian whom US border agents deported to Syria in 2002 after the Mounties mistakenly identified him as an Islamic extremist.
Lindsay Scotton from the office of Canada's privacy commissioner said the list was "a very serious incursion" into people's rights.
"It can be life-threatening, it can have very serious and profound ramifications if somebody is on a list that is used for purposes that interfere with their civil liberties," she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Scotton and others worry that foreign airlines might provide the list to their own governments, thereby putting innocent people at risk if they travel abroad.
Allan Kagedan, Transport Canada's chief of aviation security policy, told CBC that any airline that passed on data from the list would be subject to large fines and possibly the removal of their operating licence.
Samah Sabawi, executive director of the National Council on Canada-Arab relations, said she feared the list might encourage racial profiling by authorities.
"How did we survive the last five years since (the) 9/11 (suicide attacks on the United States) without a no-fly list? If we have survived it so wonderfully and extremely well, then why do we need it today?" she told Reuters.
The list includes people who are or have been "involved in a terrorist group," or who have been convicted of "one or more serious and life-threatening crimes against aviation security".
Others barred from flying include those "convicted of one or more serious and life-threatening offences and who may attack or harm an air carrier, passengers or crew members".
More details of how the no-fly list will operate can be found at http://www.passengerprotect.gc.ca.
- REUTERS
