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First Cat Stevens, now Robert Johnson?

60 Minutes, in collaboration with the National Security News Service, has obtained the secret list used to screen airline passengers for terrorists and discovered it includes names of people not likely to cause terror, including the president of Bolivia, people who are dead and names so common, they are shared by thousands of innocent fliers.

Gary Smith, John Williams and Robert Johnson are some of those names. Kroft talked to 12 people with the name Robert Johnson, all of whom are detained almost every time they fly. The detentions can include strip searches and long delays in their travels.

"Well, Robert Johnson will never get off the list," says Donna Bucella, who oversaw the creation of the list and has headed up the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center since 2003. She regrets the trouble they experience, but chalks it up to the price of security in the post-9/11 world. "They're going to be inconvenienced every time … because they do have the name of a person who's a known or suspected terrorist," says Bucella.

Cloonan, when shown a copy of the list from March 2006, tells Kroft, "I did see Osama bin Laden, both with an "O" in the first name and "U" in the second…I was glad to see that. But some of the other names I see here…I just have to scratch my head and say, 'My God, what have we created here?'"

Bad, right? But its not the worst part:

But the names of some of the most dangerous living terrorists or suspects are kept off the list.

The 11 British suspects recently charged with plotting to blow up airliners with liquid explosives were not on it, despite the fact they were under surveillance for more than a year.

The name of David Belfield who now goes by Dawud Sallahuddin, is not on the list, even though he assassinated someone in Washington, D.C., for former Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. This is because the accuracy of the list meant to uphold security takes a back seat to overarching security needs: it could get into the wrong hands. "The government doesn't want that information outside the government," says Cathy Berrick, Director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues for the General Accounting Office

The logic, apparently, is that some people are such a significant threat that we can't actually put them on the list designed to protect us from people who are a significant threat. Because, you know... terrorist masterminds would never suspect that we know who they are or that we are looking for them. Or something.

But back to the first excerpt for a moment. Want to know why the obliteration of habeas corpus is such a big deal? This is why. Our government makes mistakes like this all the time. Once upon a time, in fact, that idea was central to conservative rhetoric. But not anymore. Now they've decided that it is a good idea to allow a single man to unilaterally declare people, including US citizens, to be such a threat that are entitled to virtually no legal protections whatsoever. The logic, I suppose, is that although they might get "little" things like a no fly list wrong, the big life or death things will be handled flawlessly. Flawless logic, right?

(Hat tip: Kevin Drum)