WASHINGTON, July 1 (UPI) -- A former U.S. Air Force officer stranded in Ireland because he is on the no-fly list has joined a lawsuit against the Justice Department.
"I have absolutely no idea why I'm on the list," Steve Washburn told the Las Cruces, N.M., Sun-News by e-mail Wednesday. "No one will tell me why or give me a way to get off the list."
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of 10 people, six of them U.S. citizens or legal residents who have been unable to return to the country. The lawsuit names U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and other top officials as defendants.
Washburn and his wife, a Spanish citizen, had been living for several years in Saudi Arabia, where he worked as a security expert.
They decided to move back to New Mexico, where Washburn had worked for NASA as a firefighter at White Sands, and spent a week in Ireland on the way to visit a new grandchild.
He learned he was on the no-fly list Feb. 5, when he was barred from getting on a plane bound for the United States. He tried, at the U.S. Embassy's suggestion, to travel by way of Mexico, only to be blocked there too.
Washburn was given a lie detector test by the FBI at his own request and passed. He said he got some idea from the test why he is on the list -- including his years in Saudi Arabia and his conversion to Islam.
