Logan security policy draws suit from ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Massachusetts Port Authority and the Massachusetts State Police yesterday over a new security policy at Logan International Airport in which police question and detain passengers based on unusual or suspicious behavior.
The ''behavioral assessment screening" program, the first at any US airport when it started in November 2002, was one of the security changes at Logan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The two planes that hit the World Trade Center were hijacked after taking off from Logan.
But the ACLU suit says the policy is unconstitutional and ''effectively condones and encourages racial and ethnic profiling." The lawsuit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, asks for an injunction to put the policy on hold, plus unspecified monetary damages.
MassPort, which manages Logan, defended the program, which goes a step beyond prior criteria that allowed police to stop and question people when they have a reasonable suspicion that the suspect has committed or is about to commit a crime.
''Logan's Behavior Pattern Recognition program is specifically designed to ensure the protection of everyone's constitutional and civil rights," said a MassPort statement. ''Racial profiling is not an effective law enforcement tool and plays no role in behavior pattern recognition."
The ACLU lawsuit stems from an October 2003 incident in which King Downing, national coordinator of the civil liberties group's ''Campaign Against Racial Profiling," was leaving Logan for a meeting on the topic. State Police troopers stopped him near a public phone booth inside the airport, said John Reinstein, legal director of the regional ACLU office.
Downing ''was on his way out the door; he wasn't getting on a plane, he was getting off a plane," Reinstein said. ''As far as we're concerned, that's no different from somebody walking down the street. The question is whether the police can walk up to anybody, not on any reasonable basis but sort of on hunch, and require them to account for where they're going and where they've been."
State Police issued a statement saying they were investigating the allegations of the lawsuit and also said the ACLU has been uncooperative with requests to interview Downing. ''The Massachusetts State Police are committed to protecting the constitutional and civil rights of all citizens," the statement said.
Reinstein said the ACLU did not provide Downing to police because they were not filing a complaint against State Police, but were only seeking information about security policies. Reinstein also said Downing was not trying to test the security policy.
According to the ACLU lawsuit, Downing, who is black and wears a short beard, initially refused to show identification to police unless they told him why they were asking to see his documentation. Downing was then told by an officer that he had been behaving suspiciously. Fearing arrest, Downing eventually showed authorities his driver's license and travel documents and was allowed to leave, the lawsuit says.
''This is a dangerous extension of police power," Downing said in a statement yesterday. ''I was stopped and held for no legal reason by armed State Police troopers. . . . This is racial profiling and not the action of a government that stands for freedom and the rights of all its people."
Frederick Schauer, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and author of the book ''Profiles, Probabilities, and Stereotypes," said the lawsuit could help clarify a US Supreme Court decision in a Nevada case last spring, which indicated that authorities are free to ask for identification from anyone they determine is suspicious.
