Says Added Scrutiny May Eventually Cost Him His Job

Erich Scherfen says all he wants is a job, and for the US government to leave him alone... but that's a difficult goal, given that he's a commercial airline pilot who's also on the US terrorist watch list.

Faced with the prospect of losing his current job -- as well as any realistic chance of getting a new one within the industry -- on Tuesday the 37-year-old New Jersey native sued the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies, asking for his name to be stricken from the list.

"My livelihood depends on being off this list," Scherfen told The Associated Press.

The pilot's case is an interesting one... and gives some indication as to how the government selects terror "suspects." A combat veteran of the first Gulf War, Scherfen converted to Islam in 1994.

Scherfen says neither he nor his Pakistani-born wife have a criminal record, or any ties to terror organizations. Yet he discovered in April that both were on the list, when he was suspended from his year-long job as a pilot for Colgan Air over security concerns. He's still out of a job today.

As it turns out, Scherfen and his wife, who's also Muslim, have been on the list since sometime in 2006... which helped explain why they were often subjected to added scrutiny when traveling. All attempts to resolve the issue with DHS or the Transportation Security Administration have been unsuccessful.

TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis wouldn't comment on the lawsuit, though she did claim "religious and political affiliation does not impact whether an individual is placed" on a watch list. Davis made a point to note the agency receives those lists from the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center... which, citing security issues, will neither confirm nor deny that such lists exist in the first place.

Attorney Amy C. Foerster, who is representing Scherfen with assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union, says that's ridiculous on several levels.

"We have a problem when a law-abiding combat veteran is about to lose his job because the government has placed him on a terrorist watch list, but refuses to tell him why," she said.

FMI: www.aclu.org, www.dhs.gov