Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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
What next, national gun ownership registration lists?
No, no, people are brainwashed enough to think that if they can still have their gun, they're not living in a totalitarian state.
You don't need to take people's guns away if you've already poisoned their minds with your crap.
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.
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
Gotta love the government being immune to anybody on American soil suing them.
But the government is not immune to being sued. Suing the government is a Constitutional right and a favorite American pastime! 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.
My blog
And of course, the government would never violate your constitutional rights.
I hate printers.
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.
Watch yourself. Those who question The List are probably destined to end up on The List.
Understand.....whether or not it works for the stated purpose is utterly irrelevant. All that matters is that ignorant people believe that it works. It's like Homeopathic Government. Rule by Placebo.
And also understand.....all these draconian measures have little or nothing to do, really, with fighting terrorism. That's the "cover story." It's all about control -- control of "We, the people." The people who more and more are considered an utterly irrelevant nuisance to those in power.
"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.
The concept of sovereign immunity is common in other governments as well - the original rationale for having it in a democratic society was to force change in government policy through the will of the majority rather than the suit of 1 person/decision of a judge. Later as the bugs in the judicial system were worked out lawsuits were seen as an available check and balance and were therefore introduced to allow the minority to offset the majority if necessary (small-R republican vs. purely democratic).
--- You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad- Neal (not Cowboy) Boortz
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
How he's better than a constitutional scholar for running the executive branch.
You mean the Constitutional Scholar that voted for a bill including retroactive telecom immunity and warrantless wiretapping?
I think Obama is the best choice out of the five who are running but don't delude yourself into thinking that he has anymore respect for the rule of law than any of the other 43 Presidents we had. He'll expand the power of the Executive Branch just like all the others have.
Hell, it's not really surprising that Presidents would want to expand the power of their own branch. What's surprising/depressing is that the other two branches let them get away with it.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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.