As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ secretary for education, Sister McPhee oversees Catholic education in the United States, from nursery school through post-graduate. Her job includes working with the Department of Education, speaking frequently at conferences and scrutinizing religious textbooks to clear them with the teachings of the church.

For nine months in 2003 and 2004, Sister McPhee also took on the task of clearing her name from the government’s no-fly list, an endeavor that proved fruitless until she called on a higher power, the White House.

“I got to the point I could hardly go to the airport, because I couldn’t anticipate what would happen and I couldn’t do anything,” she said in an interview with Wired News. “I missed key addresses I was to give. I finally got to the point where I always checked my bag, because after I got through the police clearance, then they would put me through special security where they wand you from head to foot all over. They would dump out everything in your bag, then roll it into a ball and hand it back to you.”

The usual No Fault Government results followed.

McPhee called a family connection who works at an airline and who had access to the watch lists provided by the government to the airlines.

Sister McPhee was being stopped because the list said that an Afghani man was using the last name McPhee as an alias. The list had no first name for him, and the intensive checks would continue until she cleared her name with the ombudsman at the Transportation Security Administration, according to this family connection.

McPhee said she called the TSA’s complaint line and left numerous messages. Though the recording promised that someone would call her back in 72 hours, the TSA never called her back.

Call logs from TSA’s call center acquired by EPIC have no notation of contact with McPhee until May 13, 2004.

TSA paid Landover, Maryland-based Systems Integration more than $2 million to handle calls to the TSA complaint line from Oct. 21, 2002, to Jan. 21, 2004. Of that $2 million, $452,000 was specifically earmarked for the company to deal with the voicemail backlog.

Still, no one ever called her back.

[Head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Rev. Monsignor William] Fay. — personally wrote to Karl Rove, the top political adviser to President Bush, who contacted then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, who passed the task to a top Homeland Security lawyer.

McPhee said the lawyer immediately got the TSA to respond, and also gave her his cell-phone number in case she was ever stopped again.

“When I came off that list, it was like a miracle had happened, and the relief I can’t begin to describe to you. It did help my faith,” McPhee said. “Those nine months were the closest thing to hell I hope I will ever experience.”

Still, McPhee believes that if she didn’t have political connections, her name would still be on the list.

“For me, it was trauma,” McPhee said. “What would it be for people who don’t speak English, for new immigrants, for people who don’t have the benefit of the education I have had? If this is America, this is a pretty sad commentary.”

Who you know still counts for more than good sense in Washington, DC.