Posted 9/21/2004 08:20:00 PM by Douglas

The Transportation Security Administration hard at work. Keeping America safe from the 70s folk singers.

A London-to-Washington flight was diverted to Maine on Tuesday when it was discovered passenger Yusuf Islam — formerly known as singer Cat Stevens — was on a government watch list and barred from entering the country, federal officials said.

Homeland Security Department spokesman Dennis Murphy identified the passenger as Islam. "He was interviewed and denied admission to the United States on national security grounds," Murphy said, and would be put on the first available flight out of the country Wednesday.

Officials had no details about why the peace activist might be considered a risk to the United States. Islam had visited New York in May to promote a DVD of his 1976 MajiKat tour.

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Islam, 56, was identified by the Advanced Passenger Information System, which requires airlines to send passenger information to Customs and Border Protection's National Targeting Center. The Transportation Security Administration then was contacted and requested that the plane land at the nearest airport, that official said.

What do you have to do to get on the Advanced Passenger Information System list, and why is Cat Stevens, a.k.a. Yusuf Islam on it? Is he really a threat to national security?

When reached for a comment regarding his questioning while in custody of the TSA, Yusuf Islam made the following statement:

From the moment I could talk
I was ordered to listen
Now there's a way and I know
That I have to go, away.

If they were right, I'd agree
But it's them they know not me
Now there's a way, and I know
That I have to go, away.

I know, I have to go away.

See ya in Gitmo, Yusuf. Is that far enough for ya?