The National Business Aviation Association has been responding to a widely publicized ProPublica story that criticized its Block Aircraft Registration Request (Barr) program. "Privacy is important to business fliers because competitors can learn of potential deals by tracking airplanes," NBAA senior vice president of communications Dan Hubbard told USA Today. Association president and CEO Ed Bolen (in photo), meanwhile, commented to CNBC that "companies use these airplanes to do things that can't be done on airlines. They're flying to cities without commercial air service; they're doing three or four cities a day. They're moving products they can't take aboard an airliner." ProPublica, which describes itself as "an independent, nonprofit newsroom," said it obtained from the FAA a list of 1,100 blocked airplanes in Barr after it filed a Freedom of Information Act request and a federal judge ruled that the records are public.