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People On No-Fly List Can Sue In District Court
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "According to a new ruling, those put on the No-Fly List can challenge their inclusion in federal court. Previously, they had to go directly to an appellate court, which would deprive them of any chance to subpoena documents or witnesses and make gathering evidence difficult or impossible. Knowing the government, they will get around this by creating a 'No-Sue' list and making it even harder to change your name."
... but broken link. It looks like some helpful filter somewhere replaced a double hyphen with a dash. Article here.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Gotta love the government being immune to anybody on American soil suing them.
Airline pilot sues
Finally, the US Courts are getting wise to the abuses we Americans have been subjected to in the name of battling terrorism. In fact, the nanny state has just used the 9-11 stuff as an excuse to do what they've always wanted to do--dig into our personal business. The hallmark of the creation of the US was its Constitution, which explicitly forbids the government from engaging in fishing expeditions. The protection against unreasonable search and seizure was so important they knew about it hundreds of years ago. Finally, someone is pushing back.
This whole list is a damn abomination to the constitution. I hope King George W. Bush is proud of the way he tore our freedoms up like one would a piece of paper. What next, national gun ownership registration lists?
The appeals court, overturning the lower court, is also allowing Ibrahim to sue Bondanella personally. She alleges that his order to detain her violated her constitutional rights, since the no-fly list is not a list of wanted terrorists, but rather a list of people suspected of being too dangerous to board a plane.
Could it be? No! It can't be!!
Why, I'm starting to have faith in the system again! I better turn off my internet connection, my TV, and cancel my Economist subscription before the feeling goes away!
So, you get on this list that says you're such a threat to the nation, we don't want you flying planes, and we do this without permission because this guy's DANGEROUS. Yet, they're so little a threat that a court case can get them off the list.
And who said there are no good comedians in the US?
I was put on the no fly list when I challenged some guy to a dance off and got served.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
A recent CNN feature story was about 3 American males named James Robinson. Two were professionals, and one was a young boy. The mother of the boy says that she merely changes the form of her son's name (in this case, to J. Pierce Robinson, IIRC) and the family (or the other gentlemen) can fly unhassled.
Sorry, but the no-fly list is nothing compared to the forfeiture laws that were passed in the 80s where it has become the norm to sue the property instead of the person owning it in order to circumvent the Constitution and laws protecting person and property.
People act as if anti-terrorism laws infringing on our rights is something new cooked up by Bush and Co. but the fact is we have had a steady erosion of our rights ever since the the New Deal getting far worse with Nixon's War on Drugs which has been perpetuated by each following administration. Hell Clinton went so far as to make it a Cabinet position.
The government has show increasing disregard for the rights of people and when the law proved to be insurmountable they invented new means of accomplishing the same (look up asset forfeiture) Sometimes the good guy wins ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_v._$124,700 ) but the fact that there are judges who think otherwise is scary.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
If you can't sue for your rights in court, your only recourse is terrorism.
Anyone wanna bet that people who push back like this will find themselves on a different list accidentally, say a sex offender list, or a criminals sentenced to death row that have escaped list. Accidents happen...
Denise Robinson says she tells the skycaps her son is on the list, tips heavily and is given boarding passes. And booking her son as "J. Pierce Robinson" also has let the family bypass the watch list hassle.
Capt. James Robinson said he has learned that "Jim Robinson" and "J.K. Robinson" are not on the list.
Terrorist's wouldn't even need to use fake names! They'd just need to abbreviate their real ones.
What a sad state of affairs.
Amnesty International
As all we've heard our complaints about wrongly identified people, Has this wonderful "no fly list" ever had a successful outcome in preventing a real suspect from boarding a plane i.e. a terrorist dumb enough to use his own name and passport?
Really, just one little success case will convince me it's useful...
Just one... anybody... ?
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
If the good guy wins, it's only ever temporary.
Our enemy has become, not the Muslim fundamentalists, but the federal government of the United States. We are spending a lot of time and bandwidth talking about and complaining about their actions. There is kind of a resigned tone to many of the comments that I hear and read. The US government has become sort of not "of the people, by the people, and for the people," but more "against the people." The corruption in congress and the White House is not helping at all.
Waaaa, waaaaa, the govenment, waaaaa. Suck it up. TheGovernment, at least so far, was put there by you, me, and the asshole sitting next to you who wouldn't know a real issue from the drivel he was told to care about by Fox, CNN or his f'ing priest. Maybe if half as many of the proles who vote for American Idiot^h^h^hIdol would quit crying about TheGovernment and go f'ing vote for something that actually matters, we wouldn't be in this hole. Next time you want to whine about TheGovernment, I suggest you look in the mirror and/or at the asshole sitting in the cube next to you at work. This mess is collectively Our fault.
Clever, but I doubt it. They'll just do what this administration does every time they get sued: They'll claim that they can't provide any information for National Security reasons.
If the No Fly List is bad and we scrap it, what then should we do to thwart future hijackings?
How do we go from security theatre to security?
- Aside from strategic efforts like... trying to make them hate us less, how do you guys recommend that we protect ourselves from the next attack on the tactical level? If some group has decided to crash a plane into the Hoover Dam, how do we prevent it? Or do we say "Life is hard, wear a cup. Our liberties are more important"?
- Also, if investigating potential terrorists is bad, what about our investigations into organized crime? Should the law wait until a crime is already committed to do something? When does someone cross the line between innocent to suspect? After there's a smoldering crater, or when they do something a would be terrorist is likely to do/that previous terrorists have done?
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Is Corporate USA, goverment puts YOU in a no-fly list...This could never happen in Soviet Russia...
... but only in a district 6000 miles away, with an ocean between?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If the good guy wins, it's only ever temporary.
Actually, I think they are happy for the "good guy" to win just once in a while. It gives them something to point to with a used car salesman grin and say, "See? The system works!" while the other several thousand of innocents continue to get screwed.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
The no-fly list is also nothing compared to the rest of what the Bush administration had pushed through with the help of a Congress that either supports him or too spineless to stand up to him.
I don't know of people that were held indefinitely overseas without access to counsel or even a description of what they've been charged with as a result of alleged drug dealing. The Reagan and Clinton administration actually appeared to respect the anti-domestic spying laws passed in the wake of Nixon's abuses; now on top of spying laws that appear to be unconstitutional on their face, Bush's people are stepping beyond the modest limits set by their own laws.
Bush may not have opened the action, but he's certainly raised the stakes with the PATRIOT Act, his watered-down FISA law, and signing statements effectively saying he's not going to obey certain sections of laws that show up on his desk. It's not like he could have vetoed those laws and asked Congress to draft versions that Bush approved -- oh wait, he could have.
Now we've got the Nixon-era racketeering laws (not specifically drug-related, though he was certainly opposed to illicit drugs), the asset forfeiture you mentioned, the extremely harsh and internally inconsistent drug laws, and now a return of domestic spying and indefinite detention. The last, which before Bush hadn't been seen in earnest since WWII, is an especially troubling development. Now it's conceivable to spend the rest of your life in a military camp without trial if you're judged to be an enemy combatant.
Invasion of privacy and property are bad, but infringing on someone's physical freedom is much, much worse. And unfortunately, I agree that many judges don't even seem to care what the Constitution says; it wouldn't shock me at all if despite the 13th Amendment some federal court decided slavery was once again legal.
Just because his predecessors infringed liberties doesn't give G. W. Bush or his successors the right to do so. And I would argue that our current president has been the most aggressive in history, with Nixon a close second.
We now have "wars" against terrorism, drugs, child pornography, drunk driving, and probably some other domestic causes; in addition to two actual wars and possibly two more on the horizon (Iran and Georgia). Why can't some general come out and say that if you spend all your time and money starting wars, you won't win any of them? I guess our recent commanders-in-chief don't seem to grasp that concept.
I'm on the same list as this guy. He is basically a whining, privileged douche, just like all commercial pilots. He is not on the "no-fly" list (otherwise he would not be allowed to fly, period.) The list that he is on is the "Watch" list, which means that he has a name that is the same or similar to someone the government is interested in. What this means is that he has to verify his ID before he gets a boarding pass and pass security. It means that he has to stand in line with the rest of us plebes, rather than walking to front of the line because he's a pilot and therefore exempt from all the hassles that us citizens have to endure. This guy is whining about being treated like everyone else, and having to arrive 15 minutes earlier and show his ID. His job is not on the line, that's just a claim he's making to sue the government.
OK...
I can do this. I am, after all,
a superhero!
..this http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/08/watch-listed--1.html
Apparently someone's word processor interpreted -- as ?.
Heh, captcha is reduce.
If, as we surmise, the TSA's brand of 'security theater' is intended to keep the flying public frightened and to 'stay in line', as it were, (because acting out a metaphor is more powerful than most people realize,) then weakening it's effects in this way may simply induce the TSA and its puppetmasters to change their tactics. Another tactic has already been practiced and reported on, as it happens, and I wrote a short story about what might happen if it got out of hand. The story is called "Incident on Concourse B", and it starts like this...
+ + +
Lendon Forrester, clattering bags of jumbled canned goods, ran up the steps and opened the door. "Did I miss it?"
"No," Frannie Jurdens called from the kitchen. "They're still in a holding pattern." She capped the jug she'd been filling, and placed it beside the others on the counter.
Len glanced at the reporter on the living room TV in passing. "...the ticket counter behind me, air travel in our city has ground to a halt. This same 'ghost-town' scenario is being played out at airports across the country, in the wake of this morning's thwarted terrorist attack in Cincinnati."
Frannie looked up as he entered. "I don't know, Len. The media's crawling with rumors."
+ + +
You can read the whole story here: http://klurgsheld.wordpress.com/2007/09/05/short-story-incident-on-concourse-b/
P. Orin Zack
What evidence is needed? You've been denied the right to fly, so you're on the list. Shouldn't it then be up to the government to provide some reason why you can't be allowed to fly?
I voted for Ralph Nader
I am too dangerous to fly but I can still buy an assualt rifle.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Let's see...
Idiot
backspace
Idio
backspace
Idi
backspace
Id
Idol
IdIdol?
I think you need to learn how to use that "joke" a little better.
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
And how's that working out for you?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Slavery isn't legal? So how much of your income/time/property has to be taken before it's considered slavery? Taxes on income/sales are already over 50%...
Strengthen and lock the flight deck door. If they cannot get into the flight deck they cannot hijack the aircraft. And no the pilots are trained professionals, they will not open the door untill they are on the ground. If the Israelie airline can do it why can't everyone else.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Suing the property gets around the shell corporations that are set up so that essentially nobody owns the property.
The suer still has to have a case and the judge still has to agree.
But Dubya didn't get his second term by the popular vote. He got it by decision of judges...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Feds can change this easily by making the name compliation process part of the Transportation Security Administration or some other entity described in 29 U.S.C. section 46110. This would mean that review of the action would take place in the federal courts of appeal, not the district courts. The Ninth Circuit tells the feds that if they do that, they will really be screwing things up because the appeals judges don't take evidence or decide disputed facts (like the rightfulness/wrongfulness of an individual person's placement on the no-fly list). This is like a big hint that if the feds set this up to lock out the district courts, that bad things will happen.
Reading between the lines, I think that the Ninth Circuit is suggesting that the TSA ask Congress to set up an admin. review process of no-fly list name placement. This should have been done in the first place.
The feds want to keep the reasons for putting someone on the no-fly list secret because they believe that it is important that they keep those secrets. This invites an unfair cheap shot: (a) The feds want to keep the reasons behind the no fly list SECRET; (b) The feds are the STATE; and (c)federal POLICE maintain the list.
I think that Mr. Bush does not care about people mistakenly placed on the no-fly list. I think that he views them as necessary casualties of war. The only problem with Bush's concept of war is that it is a perpetual war that will never end.
The United States is all about balancing individual freedom against collective values. In this situtation, the Administration values the collective to the complete exclusion of the individual's freedom. The balance ought to be recalibrated.
I voted for Ralph Nader
And how's that working out for you?
Pretty well, actually. I have a clear conscience that I voted for the man I thought was most capable of doing the job and not for someone I didn't want in, but felt was better than the other guy.
It's better than having voted for Bush and then complaining about his actions. I don't have a right to complain about a candidate I helped put in office.
It's better than having voted for Gore the first time around or Kerry the second time. Even if either had won, I would still complain about them because their views still sucked and it's not what I wanted.
People feel that their vote only counts if their candidate wins. If you really feel that way, maybe you should fight to have only one name in the ballot. Then when you go to vote for the guy, he has a 100% chance of winning!
Fuck "lesser of two evils." If you ask me if I'd prefer getting hit in the head with a wooden baseball bat or a metal baseball bat, I would choose neither. If that option is not available to me, I'll introduce it as a write-in. It might not work, but when you hit me in the head it won't be because I chose to get hit in the head.
And also Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Alito... oh yeah, and Stevens, wake up, naptime is over.
Let me call your attention to Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 3, of the United States Constitution. "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed". Now, what is a bill of attainder? Why, it is a law declaring a person or group of persons guilty of a crime and imposing penalties on them without going through the aggravation of a trial. Sound familiar? With this "no-fly" list, we have a law which allows the executive to declare certain persons "terrorists" and impose upon them the penalty of not being permitted to travel by air.
Justice Scalia, stop flipping through the law books for that old excuse about how preventing people from flying is a measure necessary for public safety and not a punishment; that excuse was old when Justice Stevens was young, and it's crap. Even putting criminals in prison is also a measure necessary for public safety, it remains a punishment.
Justice Ginsburg, forget that nonsense about the contents of the list being determined by the executive and not the legislature. The executive isn't granted any power to declare a "no fly" list by the Constitution, so the only power it has in that area is that delegated by the legislature. The legislature is explicitly denied that power, so it doesn't have it to delegate.
Justice Kennedy, forget that stuff about flying not being a right. For one thing, you're treading close to the Ninth Amendment prohibition against disparaging rights not specifically listed. For another, even if flying isn't a right doesn't mean the executive or the legislature has arbitrary powers concerning it.
> But the government is not immune to being sued.
Wrong. Look up Sovereign Immunity. Yes, it can be waived.
> Suing the government is a Constitutional right and a favorite American pastime!
True. But it only works when Sovereign Immunity has been waived.
> Furthermore, any creation of 'No Sue' list as mentioned would be a violation of your Constitutional right to petition the government for a redress of issues.
True, but do you honestly think that would stop them? I mean, seriously. I honestly don't believe a minor thing like the Constitution they were sworn to uphold would ever get in the way of this administration.
That's not a rhetorical question. I read things like this and on the one hand, I think, "It's OK, I'm not being a boiled frog about this, we still have our fundamental civil liberties, the mills of justice turn slowly but in the end the Constitution is upheld."
Then on the other hand, I think, "maybe the mills of justice can't keep up with the number of wooden shoes the Administration is able to toss into them." When did all the nonsense begin? The secret, no-appeal, the-reason-why-this-is-classified-is-classified lists... and the "oh, you have no right to appeal because you're not actually ON the no-fly list, it's just that you can't fly because your name RESEMBLES a name on the no-fly list, but of course we can't tell you the name that's really ON the no-fly list. The searches for which no warrant is required because they're "random," even though some people get "randomly" searched almost every time they fly and others never get "randomly" searched at all... ...the people held at Guantanamo without charges and without trial for five years, long than many prison sentences...
If the executive branch can abrogate a constitutional right instantly just by issuing an order, and it takes the judicial branch five to ten years to undo it, is the system working?
As I say, it's not a rhetorical question. Maybe that IS good enough.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I may or may not be pleased with those happenings, but this "popular vote" concept drives me insane. There's no such thing as "the popular vote."
In naming a *Candidate*? Maybe, debatable, but that's a party matter anyway. It doesn't exist in our system of electing a president.
--- Do you believe in the day?
That's a great thought, but every single election from local to national gives us the proverbial choice between a douche and a turd sandwich.
I may be overly cynical, but you can't look me in the eye and tell me that there is a politician that has had the good of the people in mind for the last 100 years or more. We don't have a real choice; we have an illusion of choice. The candidates are vetted and chosen by our "betters" long before we even have a say in the matter.
We've long since passed the point where our system can be fixed with an election or two. The whole corrupt mess needs dismantled.
Let me see if I got this stright...
No, no you didn't.
I would offer a question. What happens when someone that is on some kind of watch list or no-fly list or some "suspected terrorist" list is allowed on an airplane?
Do all the passengers get to sue the airline because of increased stress?
If there is some kind of crash - for whatever reason - is the airline clearly responsible until proven otherwise?
I would say that given the legal climate in the US, this would absolutely be the case. You will notice the "flying imams" case was thrown out. I'm waiting for a case where a passenger sues successfully for the fear and stress caused by being seated next to a Muslim passenger in full Arab dress.
Face it, until some very real problems are resolved, there is a considerable degree of liability on the part of the airlines. They are not going to want this because one successful lawsuit would pretty much drive the airline out of business.
The No Fly List is pure, weapons grade bullshit. If they've done something, arrest them or deport them. If they haven't done anything worthy of that, why do we keep them from flying?
Now if you want something amusing....
If a large group of terrorists deliberately and publicly assumed aliases of popular American names... They could just work down the popularity list.
Anyone amused by judging by name yet?
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/08/pilot-sues-to-g.html
From Wired.com's Threat Level Blog: Pilot Sues To Get Off Terrorist List, Says Career Is At Stake
So having a common name isn't a problem so long as you've got some special privileges attached to your ID.
I'm glad your father is treated with respect. And that his exception proves the rule that this kind of police state requires you have some lateral connection to the police just to operate as a normal person with your normal rights.
--
make install -not war
Parent modded funny, but it is insightful.
Unfortunately, things have gotten to a point where it will take a lot more than just voting to fix this two-party system. The two parties have such a stranglehold on the system that no matter who gets in power, the government gets worse.
In looking at Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court, 542 U.S. 177 (21-Jun-2004), we see that the Court confined its discussion to whether a person could be required to divulge his identity. It said that a person could, and provided a bit of banana oil about cases where providing the name might be incriminating. The Court also stated that the statute could not be read as requiring production of identification papers.
However, based on its discussion of how asking someone to speak their name in the context of a Terry stop was not a Fourth Amendment violation, the Court actually upheld a conviction for failure to produce papers rather than failure to speak a name.
Tilt at windmills. Occasionally one will fall over out of sheer surprise.
the abuses we Americans have been subjected to in the name of battling terrorism.
Is it abuse if the people consent?
Worse than consent, they reelected the team that was "abusing" them. Obviously, the sheeple want a facist police state to keep the wolves at bay.
You can't take the sky from me...
I have a great idea! The government should create a Random Problems List. Each week, they would pick some unlucky person's name by random out of one of the government computer systems and add that person to the Random Problems List. Once placed on this list, it would be impossible to remove oneself. The results of being placed on this list would be that once per year, some government office or computer system which holds records on the individual would corrupt those records with random information. For example, at the tax office, individual's records would be borked, resulting in the collection of fines. At the parking ticket office, records indicating that unpaid parking tickets were issued might be created randomly, resulting in the vehicle being towed away for no reason. At the immigration office, records showing the individual is in the country illegally might be produced, resulting in them being sent across the border when they've never been there before. At the driver license office, the person's license might be deleted or suspended for no reason. The end result is that all individuals on the list would find their lives basically destroyed by government errors which would take thousands of hours to correct (if they're lucky), only to find that new problems pop up the following year.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
According to the ACLU, "The Watch List does not contain the names of the most wanted terrorists as the TSA does not want to share that information with the airlines." https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=travelsecurity_quiz6 Makes my brain explode thinking about it. Can anyone parse that so it would make sense?
I usually stay silent with this, but this time I will take the unpopular view. I say "enough."
You obviously do not know what you are talking about.
You act as if all of this is G. W. Bush's fault, as if he had master-minded all the problems you list so that he can ebb away all your civil rights. Then you go on to talk about another possible war on the horizon with Iran and Georgia.
Do you even know anything about the Georgia-Russia conflict? No. Have you spoken to anyone from that region to see how they feel? No. (I have.) Because if you did, you would see that what Bush is doing right now with possibly sending in 200 troops (as a support role, not a fighting role) is exactly the logical thing he should do. But you are too narrow-minded to see that maybe once in awhile he does something right.
It is no secret that there is a major pipeline of oil that runs through Georgia from Russia and China. So I see what you will say next: He is doing it for oil. Am I right?
Nevermind that Georgia and Ukraine are our allies, and we want them in NATO... and Russia is not. Nevermind that Georgia sent troops to help in the Iraq war. But that is what allies do.
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
It's only abuse if the people know what is happening. I don't think that is true. Second, ALLEGEDLY reelected. I doubt Bush/Cheney were legally re-elected.
Clinton never won the popular vote either. Just saying.
Yeah, unfortunately, this is temporary.
How fast do you think this 'list' will be transfered to the TSA, thus reverting the system back to the current process, where buy a ticket, show up on time, try to board the plane, are refused both boarding privileges and a refund, go home, send in a form letter to the TSA, wait for a response that never comes, complain to your congressman/senator, they say "There's nothing I can do about this. It's to keep you safe!".
It seems the only possible way to get off this list ISN'T to send in the form to the TSA, but hope you can generate enough media attention, over a long enough period of time to be embarrassing to the TSA, for them to take your name off the list.
And is there ANY reason to believe that sending in that form to the TSA to try to get your name off the no-fly list results in anything but possibly your form being filed away in a cardboard box somewhere?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
I disagree. I think you are deluding yourself, and also not reading much history, if you believe that The People put the US Government in place. The United States is not now, and has never been, a true Republic. The United States is a stealth Plutocracy (one dollar equals one vote) that masquerades as a Republic/Democracy. It was set up this way, so it's no surprise that's how it works now.
"In 1757, one of early America's wealthiest men sought a seat in Virginia's colonial legislature, the House of Burgesses. The gentleman left nothing to chance. To guarantee his election, this aspiring politician bought 28 gallons of rum, 50 gallons of rum punch, 34 gallons of wine, 46 gallons of beer, and two gallons of cider. Contemporary observers were impressed. There were, after all, only 391 voters in young George Washington's district."
"In 1884, one of the wealthiest men of his time, Henry B. Payne, wanted to become the next United States senator from Ohio. Payne's son Oliver, the treasurer of Standard Oil, did his best to help. Just before the election for Ohio's seat, son Oliver 'sat at a desk in a Columbus hotel with a stack of bills in front of him, paying for the votes of the state legislators,' who then elected U.S. senators."
"Twenty-one corporations and wealthy individuals gave $100,000 or more each in soft money to the Republican National Committee (RNC) in April 1996, according to a recently released Common Cause study.
Voting is useless if ALL the candidates from two parties suck and the whole fracking system is stacked against 3rd party candidates. Especially when it comes in to intrusions in to our civil liberties the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans, slightly different about it, but at the end of the say just as bad.
Voting wont solve the problem until there are people who are running are worth voting for and fact is there just aren't many really good people who are also opting for a career in politics. If there were they would stil have survive the selection process the media applies to them which destroys most of them ... errr.... all of them who aren't "mainstream", which more or less means "status quo" and "business as usual", which means pro big government and pro corporations, both of which translate in to to anti civil liberties for ordinary people. There used to be this illusion the Republicans were for small government, limited spending and keeping goverment out of peoples lives but McCarthism, Nixon and the last eight years proved that campaign rhetoric to be a big lie.
You look around the world and its kind of obvious China, U.S. Russia, and the U.K. among many others are moving to various shades of authoritarian nanny states designed for big corporate interests, the affluent, "law and order" and totally smashing individual freedoms. Its would take a complete miracle for ordinary people to turn it around at this point, if anyone tried, and very few will because its a great way to have your life ruined.
I was reading in China they had these protest parks for people to protest in during the Olympics. Well for some reason no one has. Why, because they have to apply for a permit to protest in them. Some brave people have applied, they've either disappeared, or the officials wouldn't give them the applications. Two elderly ladies, 70 somethings, one nearly blind, applied for permits 5 times to protest inadequate compensation for the leveling of their homes to make room for Olympic redevelopment. Since they wouldn't take no for asking to protest in the parks the Chinese said were there to protest in, they've now been sentenced to a year of labor and reeducation. I don't think they've locked them up yet but if they open their mouths once more the two grandmothers will end up in a prison camp, probably making stuff to sell at Walmart.
Welcome to the new world order.
@de_machina
ever since the the New Deal
Yes, it would have been much more preferable if the U.S. had either slid into communism or fascism instead of maintaining capitalism while establishing a social safety net.
You obviously do not know what you are talking about.
No, what's obvious is that you are rationalizing a shit sandwich.
Is Dennis Kucinich on the same page as Obama? Does McCain have the same positions as Ron Paul? Our political system has a lot of problems, but being dominated by two parties is near the bottom of the list.
Fixed that for you.
The US Constitution was the start of the erosion of rights as the federal government was granted more power. The Bill of Rights at best was a temporary bandaid - from the start the politicians have opportunistically grabbed power and erroded the rights of states and individuals.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Uh, yeah, he did. He got more votes than any other candidate. That's called winning the popular vote.
Oh, the horror of a candidate that lines up with a mere 75% of your party's views and is receptive to the other 25%. Better spoil the election and let a guy take office who's 100% opposed to just about everything you believe in, instead.
Naderites still thinking it was a good idea not to vote for Gore is like Miramax still thinking it was a good idea to pass up on Lord of the Rings after the franchise got Time Warner 11 Oscars and a few billion dollars. In other words, your select group is made up of some of the dumbest stumps to have ever existed in human history.
You've identified that our root problem is that too many people are ignorant about what the government we empowered is doing wrong.
You think that anyone who wants to tell others (or "whine", if you want to spin it that way) about what the government is doing wrong should just "suck it up". ...
I don't think you've quite finished thinking the problem through.
You are part of the problem and not part of the solution. You are the reason we currently have a 2 party system and those two are more alike than dissimilar.
I just turned 18, you insensitive clod.
many more lists like the TSA No-Fly list and his answer might change to "yes" - and rightly so.
TSA officials should have their home addresses published with each rule they make - for those seeking justice in the face of bad law.
When in doubt, do not support airlines.
against anyone named Sue. And that's all there is to it.
They interviewed some No-Fly-List people on TV. One (I think it was the mother of the 8-year-old) said she tips a skycap to get their boarding passes and doing that avoids the problem. IIRC, another said he adds his middle initial and gets through. IIRC a third did a similar minor tweak to his name and avoids the problem.
Apparently, the list is being used stupidly and simple things that fool the stupidity work to bypass it.
(spelling of his last name intentional) ran specifically to torpedo Gore. The Jew-hating Nadr couldn't abide the fact of a Jew within a heartbeat of the Presidency.
There is a quote for which I can't remember the source to the effect that insanity is rare in individuals, unusual in small groups, and common in nations. This whole situation can only properly be understood in terms of the United States of America being currently in a state of insanity. Don't get me wrong, there are still many sane individuals in that nation, but as a whole the country has gone barking mad. This is true of several other nations at this time, and I cannot exclude my own from this....it is easier to diagnose such things from outside rather than inside.
There are people who work on this list and use it that think they are protecting people. This could be the dumbest idea I have ever seen or heard. If I didn't see all the news reports on this I wouldn't believe it in a million years. History will look upon this as ... well you get the point.
If I were a terrorist I would start going by common aliases, Mike Smith, John Doe, George Bush :-)
Anyway just remember to give your kids really screwed up middle names like Zagggatttoorrr, so they don't wind up matching a name on this list.
Ah, the two party red herring. Look at other countries with a plethora of political parties in their government, like Israel or Italy - they're just as corrupt and dysfunctional as ours. Arguing that the solution to our problems is to have more political parties is just as much snake oil as term limits.
Its the campaign financing, stupid. Until you have all campaigns be publicly financed, you're inviting corruption into politics.
> creating a 'No-Sue' list and making it even harder to change your name."
Especially if you want to change your name to Sue!
If I had mod points, I'd actually mod you up. At first I took offense to your comment. But then I realized it is a true statement - the whole thing is a shit sandwich (and maybe cannot be solved).
But I still just want to know one thing: what do you expect your country's leader to do?
If we send help, then it looks like we get into other people's business too much. But if we do nothing, it looks like we abandon our allies.
What is the correct answer here?
From what I understand (from talking to people there) is that about half the people in Georgia and Ukraine are sympathetic to Russia, and the other half are sympathetic to their own country. Those that enjoy the democracy of their own country are generally appreciative of the American help (I would not have guessed this).
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."