The government doesn't hold people in such positions that accountable. Rather, the US government employee in charge of denying permission to travel as booked after reviewing the PNR feed probably needs but one plausible excuse on why the denial of transport to the US was supposedly justifiable and any discomfort with "too many Muslims" in a related travel party on a single flight won't even be addressed seriously.

DHS really has to be made to stop being able to hide behind "privacy" when the subjects of DHS action want the matter hitting them discussed, discussed publicly and are explicitly willing and able to give the DHS a pass to discuss the private details of their individual situation so that they and others can be better informed about what has transpired.

At least one of these passengers was denied an attempted visit to Israel. I do have to wonder if the increased UK-US data-sharing in recent weeks -- not all of which may actually be legal -- was a contributing factor to the denial of transport after check-in, but it could also be a matter of a disagreement about whether or not a form was completed "properly". For example, answers about other citizenship and about refusal of entry are not always understood the same way by everyone. But the denial of transport was after the ESTA was approved. Either way, something is rotten when it comes to how DHS operates.