`Data mining' may implicate innocent people in search for terrorists

By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - In his first hearing Wednesday as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont plans to examine federal "data-mining" programs, the computerized hunt for terrorists that can implicate innocent people.

Consider the case of American Airlines pilot Kieran O'Dwyer of Pittsboro, N.C.

O'Dwyer said Tuesday that U.S. Customs agents detained him for 90 minutes in 2003 when he got off an international flight in New York, telling him his name matched one on a government terrorist watch list.