<i>Our brief highlighted the utter irrationality of the government's No Fly List procedures. The plaintiffs in Latif all flew for years without any problems. But more than two years ago, they were suddenly branded as suspected terrorists based on secret evidence, publicly denied boarding on flights, and told by U.S. and airline officials that they were banned from flying¾perhaps forever.</i><p>One of the reasons that I'm not too attached to the specific details of the Snowden story (aside from supporting him, of course) is that it's just a piece of a much larger picture. Snowden's "NSA direct server access" is but a tiny speck in an ocean of civil liberties problems.<p>In this case, the government is effectively using a quasi-military/police force to control who can travel the country. (Yes, I know you can drive, but for business travelers, air travel is many times the lifeblood of their work) People are banned from traveling, in many cases from performing their livelihoods. They do not know how they got on the list. They cannot get off the list.<p>In charge of all of this is an agency, best I can tell, that has a mission of making all <i>transportation</i> safe from random terror attacks.<p>It's insane. Aside from not protecting anybody, can you begin to imagine the ways such a system could be abused? It staggers the mind.<p>There are probably around 100 people in the entire country that shouldn't fly. But the way this no-fly list is constructed, it will continue to increase year-by-year, without any incentive to pare the numbers back. Is anybody doing the math on the kind of economic impact such a system will have over a few decades?<p>I've said it before. We need to completely disband the TSA. Structural adjustments are not going to fix its scope creep, conflict of interest with the military industrial complex, and lack of competence. It's just gotta go.
As a person coming from a former Soviet republic - it reminds me of times 30 years ago, where the usual conversation with any official would look like this :<p>"no"<p>"why?"<p>"because the government says so"<p>No trial, no hearing, someone somewhere in secret made the decision and you had nothing to say in that matter. Or if you tried, you would be charged with interfering with government business, or "national security" and jailed for a random amount of time.<p>Really that different to what the US government is doing right now?
This is so un-American I can hardly believe that anyone in the USA would do it. Where's the due process? Where's the confrontation of the accuser? Where's the ability to redress a wrong?<p>This is so wrong on so many levels of Americanism. It's just Soviet, that's what it is.
The US is a lost cause for anyone on the bad side of the government for any particular reason, crimes committed or not.<p>What really gets me though is that people are truly shocked that the piece of paper held up as some illusion of rights is, like everything else, simply not worth the paper it is printed on.<p>This is a document that has been used to justify slavery, prohibition, woman as property, Jim Crow laws, the "sanctity" of marriage etc. If history shows us anything it is that regardless of whatever is written down, the laws of the land will be made by the popular opinion of those that have power, and how they interpret things. The USA is no different than Rome, feudal Europe or France under Napoleon, despite the best intentions of its founders.
I hate to make such a prediction, but this case is factually analogous to the ACLU's case against the targeted killings of US citizens without due process and ACLU's demand the standards of the kill list be disclosed. If a citizen can have his life taken without due process, it seems consistent a citizen's Constitutional Right to travel can be taken without due process. For those that do not know:<p>"On August 30, 2010, the [ACLU] filed a "targeted killing" lawsuit, naming President Barack Obama, CIA Director Leon Panetta, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as defendants. They sought an injunction preventing the targeted killing of [a US citizen], and also sought to require the government to disclose the standards under which U.S. citizens may be "targeted for death". Judge John D. Bates dismissed the lawsuit in an 83-page ruling, holding that the claims were judicially unreviewable under the political question doctrine inasmuch as he was questioning a decision that the U.S. Constitution committed to the political branches."<p>Coincidentally, or likely not coincidentally Judge John D. Bates, is also the presiding Judge of the FISA Court as shown in the Rules of Procedure for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (See: <a href="http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/rules/FISC2010.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/rules/FISC2010.pdf</a>)<p>I do not agree, but at least the US government has an argument that by disclosing publicly known or suspected terrorists, it may jeopardize our national security interests. How the hell can that be logically extended to the idea that disclosing the criteria to get on the "kill list" or "no fly list" jeopardizes our national security interests?
Just a reminder, the deadline for comments on the TSA's body scanners is Monday. <a href="http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=TSA-2013-0004" rel="nofollow">http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=TSA-2013-0004</a> has the info.
Soon though(thinking of PRISM), they'll be able to say you landed yourself on a No-Fly list because of a joke you cracked in an email you sent to your friend ten years ago that they only just mined now. (And a joke that their algo/analyst didn't understand)<p>And then they still won't let you appeal it. I wasn't aware though that No-Fly extended to boats, that makes it criminal. The only way to get off the continent then is to go to Canada or Mexico (or another SA country) and hop on a non-US associated airline. <i>That</i> is criminal.
"Back in September 2003, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released a piece of model legislation it called the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act. Like so many bills drafted by the free-market think tank, AETA was handed over, ready made, to legislators with the idea that it could be introduced in statehouses across the country with minimal modification. Under the measure, it would become a felony (if damages exceed $500) to enter "an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other means," and, in a flush of Patriot Act-era overreaching, those convicted of making such recordings would also be placed on a permanent "terrorist registry."<p>Frustrated by unauthorized documentaries of slaughterhouse abuses, the agriculture industry hired corporate lobbyists to hire Congressmen to insert laws that would ban PETA activists from using the US air transportation system.<p>These have been implemented in a number of states recently, although I'm not sure if any of them included the watchlist provision in the final draft.<p>* <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/06/ag-gag-laws-mowmar-farms" rel="nofollow">http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/06/ag-gag-laws-m...</a>
<a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Protect" rel="nofollow">http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Protect</a><p>At least the Canadian one allows you to protest. As a result only about a thousand people on the list.
They can't even get on a boat to cross the Atlantic.<p>Does anybody know if other countries reference the U.S. no-fly list? Could one of these plaintiffs drive to Canada and travel abroad that way?
I sometimes wonder how the authoritarians that come up with these policies can look at themselves in the mirror and call themselves patriotic Americans.
I'm interested to see how the Tea Party deals with these issues. It could be a huge opportunity for them... As crazy as they are, if they take up the mantle of getting government out of peoples' personal lives, it could propel them into legitimacy. I'm <i>this</i> close to deciding that this is a vote-deciding issue compared to abortion, fiscal policy, or foreign affairs. Democrats, take note.
It appears people are agreeing this (and other) actions by the government are unacceptable.<p>So what are Americans doing about it?<p>We see people in Turkey, Brazil and many other parts of the world protesting against their government, while those in the US appear to be doing nothing.<p>What's it going to take?
Welcome to the United Prisons of Americal where the only thing preventing you from being forced to walk to your destination is the fact that using a car is still legal... for now.
It's good to see that in the 21st century there are at least some areas of daily life that haven't been pushed into a constitution free zone through technicalities.