Salon has an article claiming that the "do not fly" list is real. (subscription required, or take the "one-day pass" and click through a bunch of ads). The approximately 1,000 people on the list aren't allowed on airplanes under any circumstances. The article goes on to claim that the feds maintain an additional list of passengers subject to individual search every time they try to board a plane. Choice quotes:
"The computer spit you out," she recalls the agent saying. "I don't know why, and I don't have time to talk to you about it."
The agency has no guidelines to determine who gets on the list, Steigman says, and no procedures for getting off the list if someone is wrongfully on it.
Sounds like another database run amok. Once again, a computerized system is being used as a tool to avoid responsibility.
More links: List blocks by name, not by person, ACLU survey, John Gilmore's lawsuit against the list.