Is this the face of a traitorous terrorist?

Since kindergarten, Charlie, the son of journalist Mary Jacoby, has been detained – sometimes for hours – at airport security checkpoints because his name was on the FBI’s terrorist list.

Years of pleading to federal agencies by his parents finally got his record cleared, but the not-so-scary second-grader still has been stopped when officials misread his computer file.

Jacoby writes about this on the Web site she recently founded, Main Justice. She admits that the problem developed after her husband mistakenly took his son’s passport for a trip from Belgium to London on the Eurostar train.

Now when 8-year-old Charlie travels he hands officials not just that passport but also a letter from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency that says he doesn’t need to be pulled away to be searched as a security risk.

Last week the U.S. Justice Department released a report on how the FBI puts people on its terrorist watch list. You can find it in .pdf form here.