State Secrets, No-Fly List Showdown Looms

schwit1 writes "The Obama Administration and a federal judge in San Francisco appear to be headed for a showdown over the controversial state secrets privilege in a case about the U.S. government's 'no-fly' list for air travel. U.S. District Judge William Alsup is also bucking the federal government's longstanding assertion that only the executive branch can authorize access to classified information. From the article: 'The disputes arose in a lawsuit Malaysian citizen and former Stanford student Rahinah Ibrahim filed seven years ago after she was denied travel and briefly detained at the San Francisco airport in 2005, apparently due to being on the no-fly list. In an order issued earlier this month and made public Friday, Alsup instructed lawyers for the government to "show cause" why at least nine documents it labeled as classified should not be turned over to Ibrahim's lawyers. Alsup said he'd examined the documents and concluded that portions of some of them and the entirety of others could be shown to Ibrahim's attorneys without implicating national security.'"

Comments

No tech content?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is it?

Re:No tech content?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Executive branch claims it and it alone can authorize access to classified information. If this is deemed as stupid as it sounds, especially in a supposedly free society and by a President that campaigned on unprecedented transparency, then this may be the start of something wonderful.

Re:No tech content?

[jasper160]

It doesn't matter which party they are in they want to control you.

Re:No tech content?

[Anonymous Coward]

And it is mindless cynicism like this that keeps it this way. If every politician is a crook, then only crooks become politicians.

Re:No tech content?

[Darinbob]

There are two main reasons I think this sort of thing about keeping unnecessary secrets is happening.

First, is a power play by the executive branch (it happens in the other branches too, don't get me wrong). Ie, when asked to do anything the knee-jerk response at all levels is to say "no", and when being forcefully asked or ordered again, the response is "NO" even louder. Like a petulant child being asked to go to sleep. It's pervasive because it's not a directive that comes down from upper management but just a natural response that most people have.

The second big reason is to protect loss of face and avoid embarrassment. Ie, these aren't national security secrets, but embarrassing secrets. Not even embarrassing in the sense of explosing malfeasance, but embarrassing because it makes someone looks stupid, or it makes a policy look stupid, or it makes someone who said "no" earlier look stupid if it's discovered there was no reason to say "no".

Re:No tech content?

[maxwell demon]

I guess another reason is just laziness: To say "yes", you must first go through the documents and check whether it is OK to release them. Just saying "no" is much easier, and normally the party asking for it cannot check whether that "no" was justified or not because to do so it would have to have access to the very documents to which it just got denied that access.

And yet another reason may be the person having to decide it fearing an error: If you happen by mistake to disclose something which you shouldn't have disclosed, you'll probably face severe punishment. However you'll not face severe punishment for wrongly denying access.

Re:No tech content?

[cold fjord]

If this is deemed as stupid as it sounds, especially in a supposedly free society and by a President that campaigned on unprecedented transparency, then this may be the start of something wonderful.

If you think that living in a free society with government transparency means you, and any random person that asks the janitor, librarian, or county judge, gets access to top secret intelligence data, encryption methods, war plans, nuclear release codes, the tax data from your neighbors, reviews of weakness in the security plans at the local nuclear plant, etc., etc., etc., then you haven't correctly identified where the label stupid should be attached in this discussion.

It would have been better to have started squawking about the Obama administration before the last election, don't you think?

Mr Obama's justice department has proposed that if documents requested by the public are exempt from freedom of information laws, federal agencies should be able to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist."

Transparency campaigners described the move as a "stunning" reversal of Mr Obama's pledge to run "the most transparent administration in history" during his campaign for the presidency.

In a joint statement, the American Civil Liberties Union, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and OpenTheGovernment.org said the plan threatens to "destroy integrity in government".

"It is very problematic," said Patrice McDermott, the director of OpenTheGovernment.org. "There are options open to them other than this nuclear option of lying to requesters".

The plan is the latest in a string of controversial moves by Mr Obama, who earlier this year even insisted on collecting an award for his commitment to transparency behind closed doors at the White House. --- Barack Obama accused of breaking transparency pledge

Re:No tech content?

[Anonymous Coward]

> If every politician is a crook, then only crooks become politicians.

That's how the system is designed (ie Money = power). It's not mindless cynicism, it's demonstrable cause and effect.

Re:No tech content?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a new claim with this president. They've all been taking that position for many years.

Re:No tech content?

[anagama]

It's not mindless cynicism. It is a recognition that US politics operates on a purely tribal basis.

You have Democrats who really honestly believe Obama is a peacenik who has reduced the number of troops in Afghanistan every single year of his presidency. I'm not joking -- I saw this exact comment in my local paper's comment section by a die-hard Obamabot.

You have Republicans who believe that forcing people to pay premiums to private for profit insurance companies is Marxism (as opposed to crony capitalism or corporatism, the softer brother of fascism). I see this in my local paper's comment section all the time from the mainstream-GOP-subverted Tea Baggers.

Combined, the purely tribal Democrats and Republicans probably account for about 60% of the population. The remainder will be largely filled by people who vote for a "lesser evil" and a few single digit percentage pointers who support "fringe" third parties. I'm in that last group, have been actively engaged with the fringe, stood out in the sleet and rain holding signs for that fringe, will not vote for any candidate affiliated with either the DNC or the GOP under any circumstances -- I am the fringe -- and I know there is no hope short of a scandal so egregious that one of the parties basically has to reinvent itself. Seriously, Obama's presidency should be all the demonstration one needs that to most people, policies are irrelevant, only party affiliation matters.

Re:No tech content?

[anagama]

The second big reason is to protect loss of face and avoid embarrassment

This is the heart of it. The State Secrets Doctrine in its modern form has its roots in a coverup by the Air Force of its own negligence that led to a plane crash that killed three RCA engineers. When their widows sued and requested the crash report in discovery, the Air Force refused citing State Secrets. Eventually, the Supreme Court upheld the Air Force's right to not turn over the document without any judge having ever looking at what it contained, but rather, just trusting the Government to be honest.

Fast forward many decades, the report is declassified, and guess what, all it contained was a record of poor maintenance and a failure to install manufacturer recommended heat shields in the engine to prevent the exact type of engine fire that occurred and caused the crash.

Great interview with the granddaughter who finally got her hands on the document:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/383/origin-story?act=2#play

Re:No tech content?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute. I pretty well agree with your characterization of the situation, but there's more to this than "I'm a Democrat and expected Obama to do the right thing because he's a Democrat, too". I'm not really politically active (erm, probably something I should work on...), but I do vote third party.

When Obama was campaigning for his first term, he explicitly made transparency part of his platform. We have since found out that he didn't mean it, but it's not something he handwaved or hinted it, it's something he made specific and precise promises about. He broke those promises (among others), but that's different campaigning vaguely on principles and not upholding those principles in the way I thought he meant, which is the way you normally expect politicians to "lie" (i.e. by carefully never actually making a factual statement).

This is quite different from something like drone strikes which simply was never discussed in the last election because neither candidate wanted to remind the American people of their support for extrajudicial killings and they didn't disagree on them anyway.

Re:No tech content?

[anagama]

but there's more to this than "I'm a Democrat and expected Obama to do the right thing because he's a Democrat, too".

I'd like to believe that but as I said, Obama's presidency is proof against your assertion. Take for example Marty Lederman. He used to excoriate the GWB administration for using secret memo to support due process free detention (Gitmo). When he became part of the Obama administration, he began _writing_ Obama's secret memos "authorizing" (*) due process free execution.

Exactly what besides "my tribe uber alles" can account for that 180 degree switch in position on the core question of whether a person is entitled to trial before punishment is exacted?

Or try to have a conversation with an Obama apologist, and try to get a straight answer to the question: why was it wrong for GWB to put people in jail without trial, but not wrong for Obama to kill people without trial? Eventually, after all the deflections, slogans, and GWB-blaming, you'll get down to the core: I trust Obama and I did not trust Bush. I did this once with a frequent poster on my local paper's website and that is exactly what he said. His avatar is a picture of Bush with "worst ever" written over it. That is tribal politics, nothing else, and I think it accounts for much more of what we see than it is given credit for.

The ways in which Obama has extended the GWB era policies are legion. I started to list those before burning out on the project -- I've not updated this in a year, but you can sort of get an idea: http://nothingchanged.org/ Despite the plain facts, people still support him, and nothing can explain that besides the fact that he's a member of their tribe. The silence we hear from "progressives" is proof positive that policy doesn't matter because if it did, the same people that burned GWB in effigy, would be doing that to Obama. He's that bad from a policy perspective. And of course, all those GOPers should be praising him as much as Dick Cheney has praised him. But they don't. They call him a Marxist for coming up with a health care plan to the right of that proposed by Nixon. It really is tribal, at least for the most part.

(*) legal memos written by your own lawyers are not laws, they are opinions, so to suggest there is some authority there is ridiculous.

Re:No tech content?

[Dorianny]

I can sort of understand their reasoning. Letting your enemies know that your Air Force management is so inept they can't even keep their hardware maintained properly, would have been a huge blow to the perceived strength of U.S.A's military might.

Re:No tech content?

[hairyfeet]

And that statement is as stupid as saying if you play three card monty a thousand more times you are sure to win.

For voting to actually do jack shit you have to have something to vote FOR and what we have in the states isn't even Coke V Pepsi anymore, its Coke in a bottle V Coke in a can. Any and all attempts at a grass roots movement on a national level WILL be quashed by the MSM, for an example look up "Jon Stewart Ron Paul" which even though Stewart doesn't agree with Paul on squat (and neither do i, I find libertarianism quite nasty) even he was quick to point out using the MSM footage just how badly it was rigged. The amount of sentence tap dancing they had to do to keep Paul "He who would not be named" would have been comical if not for the fact that you were watching the primary being tilted by the corporate masters of the MSM, it got to the point one of the reporters even says "We are talking about Palin and Christie, who aren't even running, and nobody is talking about Paul who is doing great in the polls here" and the anchor got a douchebag smirk and says "If you get footage of Palin or Christie send it in, you can keep the Paul stuff"

So it is NOT "mindless cynicism" to face reality and reality has shown time and time again that all you can do in American politics anymore is change the figureheads, the power behind the throne is still making the calls no matter which lackey is in the seat. As the late great Bill Hicks said more than 20 years ago " I believe the puppet on the left shares MY beliefs, well i believe the puppet on the right has MY interests at heart...hey there is one guy controlling both puppets!"

Re:No tech content?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the offchance that you're not trolling:

Every single president in the history of the republic has "killed people without trial". It's called "war".

Abraham Lincoln ordered the US army to kill tens of thousands of US citizens, on US soil. History doesn't generally condemn him on those grounds.

Why is it so terrible that Obama insists he has the right to do the same thing (on a much, much smaller scale)? (Not that he does it, mind you - just that he claims the right to do it.)

Re:No tech content?

[anagama]

Oh -- we're at war with Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, etc. etc.? I guess I didn't get the memo. Or do you mean "the whole world is a battlefield"? In that case, there is no logical reason to exclude drone strikes in Iowa -- it is after all, part of the battlefield. Expect it. Not this year or the next, but a decade or so from now. And then blame yourself.

And yes, it is so terrible that Obama does the same and worse than GWB. It's the pattern:

Considered historically, it will become clear that the job of Republican governments is to invent novel, ad hoc expansions of state power, while the job of Democratic governments is to consolidate and systematize them. Far from repudiating supposed Bush-era "excesses," the Obama regime has sought--usually successfully--to entrench and to codify them. This is just the latest example.

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2010/05/ratchet-effect-part-infinity.html

Re:No tech content?

[lsatenstein]

It's not mindless cynicism. It is a recognition that US politics operates on a purely tribal basis.

You have Democrats who really honestly believe Obama is a peacenik who has reduced the number of troops in Afghanistan every single year of his presidency. I'm not joking -- I saw this exact comment in my local paper's comment section by a die-hard Obamabot.

You have Republicans who believe that forcing people to pay premiums to private for profit insurance companies is Marxism (as opposed to crony capitalism or corporatism, the softer brother of fascism). I see this in my local paper's comment section all the time from the mainstream-GOP-subverted Tea Baggers.

Combined, the purely tribal Democrats and Republicans probably account for about 60% of the population. The remainder will be largely filled by people who vote for a "lesser evil" and a few single digit percentage pointers who support "fringe" third parties. I'm in that last group, have been actively engaged with the fringe, stood out in the sleet and rain holding signs for that fringe, will not vote for any candidate affiliated with either the DNC or the GOP under any circumstances -- I am the fringe -- and I know there is no hope short of a scandal so egregious that one of the parties basically has to reinvent itself. Seriously, Obama's presidency should be all the demonstration one needs that to most people, policies are irrelevant, only party affiliation matters.

Why does everyone think that the President walks on water and has absolute power. Every president relies on his staff. A president is an orchestra leader. And some of his musicians are excellent, others don't deserve to be there.

As the leader, he tries to be on top of everything, to listen to briefings and to make the best decisions, subject to constraints. And from what I have seen, the constraints are that socialism is a very dirty word. Socialism means old age pension, Obamacare, medicade, public schools and low cost universities and fairness.

Socialism does not mean communism, nor does it mean the government owns everything. It does often mean that a person has a right to fair compensation, and that wealth should be creating jobs domestically.

sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[OrugTor]

I want this judge on the Supreme Court.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the same judge who had the Oracle-Google Java case. He gave Oracle a huge slap down when they tried to argue that a trivial piece of code should bring down Android. I would love to see this guy on the Supreme Court, but unfortunately common sense and plain speaking will not endear him to anybody in Washington DC. #makestoomuchsense

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure Alsup is the reason.

Alsup, a Clinton appointee, is riding the government pretty hard in recent rulings. However, it's hard to argue that he's exhibiting an anti-government bias. He twice dismissed Ibrahim's claims against federal agencies, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed his decisions . Now, Alsup seems determined to move the case forward. A trial is currently scheduled for November.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[a.d.trick]

This isn't the first time I've heard his name before. This is also the guy who declared Oracle's Java API's to be not copyrightable and the rangeCheck code they were crying over was something so simple he'd written 100 times before.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[idontgno]

I like this guy. He's of the good ones.

Which is why we're going to hear about his tragic and inexplicable suicide* any day now, probably before this case is decided.

*May not be suicide. May be an unfortunate traffic accident. Or random unsolvable act of violence. Yeah, I'm hedging my bet. Other than the part in which a thorn is plucked out of the lion's paw and discarded.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll have "an unfortunate, fatal shaving accident".

captcha: demolish

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[dkleinsc]

That mental clarity is why he'll never get nominated. Presidents aren't looking for sharp judicial minds, they're looking for reliable votes on whatever the successor case to Roe v Wade will be.

The sharp judicial minds have this annoying habit of thinking for themselves and coming to conclusions that are significantly different from the politicians who put them on the court. Some examples of this: David Souter, John Paul Stevens, John Roberts. What most politicians actually want is another Clarence Thomas.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[steelfood]

Same. If anyone retires, I want him nominated. Shame it's not actually going to happen, now that he's taken on the Obama administration.

Obama's really something. At the least, if he had defended DOMA, he had the excuse of his duty to defend the law. But given his stance there, it's obvious that any law his people defends is by choice.

The government under his watch is so transparent now we can almost see into it. Oh wait. That's just our reflection.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[fustakrakich]

Unless you find, nominate, and elect a politician that would appoint him, you can cross that off your bucket list. I have to paraphrase the guy who said of a ruling, *He made his decision, now let him enforce it.* This judge may as well be president of North Korea as far this will get him.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[JackieBrown]

Why did you only mention to pro-life judges?

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing the first step to getting on The Supreme Court isn't to piss off the guy in charge of nominating you.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Bearhouse]

Unfortunately, he's just made sure no POTUS will ever nominate him. Shame.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Jane Q. Public]

"#makestoomuchsense"

Mod AC up!

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[x_t0ken_407]

It's truly a shame how these things happen, and how so many in the pacified populace fail to put two and two together.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Jane Q. Public]

"Which is why we're going to hear about his tragic and inexplicable suicide* any day now, probably before this case is decided."

It's pretty risky to try to do something like that to a public figure like a judge, especially when everybody is watching.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Rob the Bold]

"Which is why we're going to hear about his tragic and inexplicable suicide* any day now, probably before this case is decided."

It's pretty risky to try to do something like that to a public figure like a judge, especially when everybody is watching.

Light aircraft accidents, on the other hand . . .

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[s.petry]

Risky, not really. Remember who owns the media companies. If people are not able to read about reality, they don't know reality. Look at the President of Poland for an example of how media completely controlled the story, and that was a pretty big plane crash. Most of the "free" world had no idea he was anti-EU currency.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[dkleinsc]

Because there the ones that came to mind of smart judges who have done different things in office than they were expected to do by the politicians who nominated them. If you have some judges thought to be pro-choice who changed their mind, feel free to list them.

David Souter, for example, was vilified by the Republican Party for his vote on Griswold v Connecticut. John Roberts has gotten raked over the coals in Republican circles for his vote on the Affordable Care Act.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[s.petry]

Bigotry runs thick. Don't get too down on people however, most don't see that they are trained to be biased and the education is continued in all forms of media and Govt. propaganda.

Seriously, think about how much time has been spent discussing the "Black vote" vs. the "Hispanic vote" vs "Gay vote", etc... As long as people continue to talk that way, we will maintain learned biases. And the vote discussion is just a fraction of the bias being discussed in all forms of media and politics.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[ShanghaiBill]

Why did you only mention to pro-life judges?

Neither Souter nor Stevens is "pro-life". They repeatedly voted to uphold abortion rights, most significantly in Planned Parenthood v Casey, but in other cases as well.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[maxwell demon]

and how so many in the pacified populace fail to put two and two together.

Why? Everyone knows that gives twenty-two. :-)

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[reve_etrange]

Judge Alsup is also a coder - and that's why he knew how trivial the 9 lines of RangeCheck() were.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[dkleinsc]

Sorry, wrong citation for Souter. As a sibling post mentioned, the case is actually Planned Parenthood v Casey. Griswold is something different.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[St.Creed]

Most of the "free" world had no idea he was anti-EU currency.

On the other hand, we don't all live in the USA. The inhabitants of that small piece of real estate called the EU were pretty well informed if they cared to read the newspapers.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, think about how much time has been spent discussing the "Black vote" vs. the "Hispanic vote" vs "Gay vote", etc... As long as people continue to talk that way, we will maintain learned biases.

Yeah, lets start calling them "low information voters". That will help.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Jane Q. Public]

"Risky, not really. Remember who owns the media companies. If people are not able to read about reality, they don't know reality."

Risky, really.

Maybe not risky to them personally, but risky to their cause. All it would take is an already-suspicious public to know that it was done, and why. Exactly who did it is far less important. Not unimportant... just lots less.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[anagama]

None of that is necessary. Just let the "new" IT guy find some child porn on his computer at the office during a software update, doctor some log files showing he visited various bad sites ... and that's that. Character assassination is way less risky than assassination.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

Your forgot small plane crash.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

Roberts justifiably got raked over the coals because after deciding it was NOT a tax for the purposes of hearing the case he then decided it WAS a tax for purposes of deciding the law. He very clearly twisted the law into forms never before dreamed of to achieve a political goal. This is exactly what the Supreme Court is NOT supposed to do.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[steelfood]

Uh, both Souter and Stevens are not pro-life according to their record. Not sure where you're getting your information from.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

Why kill him when a simple prostitution scandal will do all that's necessary to discredit him?

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

He said "free" world. How much more specific does he have to be?

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[PlusFiveTroll]

catch twenty-two.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[davester666]

Yes. More like "Oops, he's just been arrested with a male hooker in his car giving him a BJ. While watching kiddie porn on his cell phone."

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

sex scandal. it's generally a sex scandal.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that he was against euro was not prominently mentioned because it was not that special even then and because he had _many_ other opinions that were a lot more interesting to the press. Maybe if he had been a little less homophobic he would have managed to get airtime on other issues in the western world -- maybe this anti-gay attitude was normal in Poland but it was definitely news in the rest of Europe. And it's not like the gaybashing was the only 'interesting' thing about the brothers...

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[wonkey_monkey]

It's truly a shame how these things happen, and how so many in the pacified populace fail to put two and two together.

It's also a shame how many people end up with five.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

If I recall correctly, he wasn't a coder when the case started. He just read some reference material and taught himself to gain some familiarity.

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[reve_etrange]

He read reference material for Java during the trial, but had been using other language for years. Here's Alsup:

I couldn't have told you the first thing about Java before this problem. I have done, and still do, a significant amount of programming in other languages. I've written blocks of code like rangeCheck a hundred times before. I could do it, you could do it. The idea that someone would copy that when they could do it themselves just as fast, it was an accident. There's no way you could say that was speeding them along to the marketplace. You're one of the best lawyers in America, how could you even make that kind of argument?

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[Anonymous Coward]

If every anti-EU currency political figure was killed in accident we would be free of at least half of politicians in EU. And do not forget how little popularity he held in his own country at that time. His chances for being re-elected were , at the time, next to none
 

Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity

[s.petry]

We have already seen that the US main media outlets are absolutely controlled. My son who was 13 at the time noticed it without me mentioning it (some things are not worth worrying a young man about). OWS for example, had almost no coverage beyond the media calling them pot smokers and dead beats. This was done on every major news channel, without ever mentioning what the initial movement was about. He was interested and studied up on the 2008 financial collapse. He was extremely upset because of the media not only being biased, but fabricating a narrative to dismiss the movement.

We saw the same with Ron Paul (my brilliant son noticed this also) where the media flat out ignored him and what he said. He had almost no coverage, and what they did cover was reporters calling him "Crazy", "Insane", and "Dangerous". If they did an interview, they would only show something like the reporter asking "What do you think about being (blah's) running mate" and no serious issues. That happened in both 2008 and 2012.

The point is that our media is controlled, and our media does keep people ignorant. We may be old enough to joke about the Pravda or smart enough to point out how Chinese media is used as a control, but the US media has become the exact same. Many of us are living under the delusion that the media is still honest and investigating.

There is simply no risk involved until more people figure that out, and look to independent news sources.

Smoke and Mirrors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure what disgusts me more here, reading how TSAs due diligence with assessing no-fly status is suddenly a matter of national security, or the fact that this was an issue in 2005 and our wonderful legal system is just now getting around to it.

Gotta love it when judges are arguing over bullshit that is so damn old that former Presidents barely remember authorizing it.

Obama will be retired and tending to his marijuana crops by the time we bring up his policies for legal review...

Captcha = erasable. Yup, sounds about right. Your rights are being erased every day.

Re:Smoke and Mirrors.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Boston bombers were able to travel to Chechnya, learn how to make bombs and travel back. Very effective guys, who would've thought they didn't need to bring the nails and ball bearings on the plane with them to do that??? Certainly not the TSA.

Re:Smoke and Mirrors.

[NatasRevol]

Shhhh, you'll make the TSA look stupid.

Re:Smoke and Mirrors.

[hawguy]

The Boston bombers were able to travel to Chechnya, learn how to make bombs and travel back. Very effective guys, who would've thought they didn't need to bring the nails and ball bearings on the plane with them to do that??? Certainly not the TSA.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but no one (not even the TSA) thinks airport screenings will stop bombs from coming into the USA - the TSA screening is only there to help prevent bombs from making it onto the plane. The no-fly list isn't even meant to keep known terrorists out of the country, it's meant to prevent them from boarding a plane, hence the name "No-FLY list"

Re:Smoke and Mirrors.

[Anonymous Coward]

... stop bombs from coming into the USA ...

That's why the TSA wants to search your car.

... meant to keep known terrorists out of the country ...

Didn't the white house issue a TSA press release a few months ago? The TSA argued that 'being pricks' prevents terrorism.

Obviously, the Marathon bombing occurred because the TSA wasn't prick-ish enough. Wait for: 'Coming to a house near you, the TSA'. Please think of the children, because 'Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel'!

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

why at least nine documents it labeled as classified should not be turned over to Ibrahim's lawyers.

Because power.

Re:Why?

[Opportunist]

Knowledge is power.

Hide it well.

Re:Why?

[lcam]

Information is power, he who controls the information has more control over decisions being made.

This asymmetry of information is the evidence of their recent power grabing trend.

+1 to this judge for is call.

Warrant

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Just the things being investigated and when can tip off associates, or, in the case of mistaken identities due to similar names, the real target.

While I am all for increased legislative oversight of all spy and terrorist-related investigations, good luck with this. The real Constitutional crime is not just warrantless stuff, but warrantless without cursory review by elected legislators or judges.

Re:Warrant

[houghi]

Look at the positive side. If the defense does not get the papers, they can't sue and win.

Re:Warrant

[Areyoukiddingme]

Just the things being investigated and when can tip off associates, or, in the case of mistaken identities due to similar names, the real target.

Which just goes to show that no one in the intelligence community was consulted before the list was created in the first place. Someone you suspect of being a terrorist shows up at the airport and his experience is suddenly radically different than everyone around him? That's a flashing neon sign, isn't it? I'm sorry, but I had the idea that when you suspect someone of being an enemy agent, you do nothing to alert them to the fact you suspect them, right up until the point where you bring the hammer down. You don't want a bomber to know you're coming. That's a good way to get blown up. It should have been the Pay-Really-Close-Attention-and-Screen-Really-Well List, not the No-Fly List.

Please, stop with the hype

[fustakrakich]

There will be no 'showdown'. The feds can and will tell everybody to fuck off, and as always, they will comply... to avoid being tagged as 'anti-American'

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[Opportunist]

It's a sad day when you can tag someone anti-American who is pro-Constitution.

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[JackieBrown]

Obama will just demand Congress act and then, when they can't agree om anything, come up with some new executive authority.

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[ebno-10db]

There will be no 'showdown'.

You're probably right. At least when Andy Jackson told the Supreme Court to go screw itself, you knew he was throwing the Constitution in the toilet.

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[Anonymous Coward]

These are sad times we live in.

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the Soviet Union had similar issues: anyone who insisted on following their constitution was a dissident. If the US is headed for a downfall, many things point towards one of a similar kind as the USSR.

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[Nadaka]

The problem is that a lot of people who label themselves as pro-Constitution are actually nothing of the sort.

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that a lot of people who label themselves as pro-Constitution are actually nothing of the sort.

Exactly.

Anyone who supported DOMA, for example, has no business invoking the Constitution. The Federal government has no business in marriage, as per the Constitution. Sure, that means no lettin' them thar queers steal up all them marriage certificates - but surprise, surprise, it means D.C. has nothing to say about who states choose to let marry.

Then there's our military. The Federal government also has no business maintaining a standing army. "But, but, brown people!" Too bad. Maybe you should go make a Constitutional amendment about it.

Indeed, the vast majority of Republicans - and even Tea Partiers - are all in favor of violating the Constitution at every opportunity.

(I leave out the Democrats not due to innocence, but because even they know they're shitting all over the document. As insulting as it is, at least they're (usually) not hypocrites about it.)

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[Anonymous Coward]

"But, but, brown people!"

Using that phrase (to say nothing of the other stuff you posted) tags you as a nitwit. In the last 100 years the US has killed large numbers of Europeans and Asians, far more than your concern about "brown people." Race baiting nitwits.

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[Type44Q]

It's a sad day when you can tag someone anti-American who is pro-Constitution.

It's not as if we weren't warned... over two hundred years ago.

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[CrimsonAvenger]

The Federal government also has no business maintaining a standing army.

Alas, you are mistaken here.

It should be noted that when the Constitution was being written, it was proposed that there be a Constitutional limit on the size of any standing army.

George Washington then proposed that we add a clause to that clause, limiting the size of any invading foreign army to twice the limit specified for the US Army.

Needless to say, several people opposed to standing armies shut up and the idea of a Constitutional limit on a standing Army was quietly forgotten.

Note, though, that up until WW2, outside of wartime, the US maintained a TINY standing Army (tiny for the size of the country) as a cadre for a large Army if one were needed in war.

Worked pretty well for 150 years, but the Occupations of Germany and Japan plus the Cold War pretty much put a kibosh to that.

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[khallow]

The problem is that a lot of people who label themselves as pro-Constitution are actually nothing of the sort.

I thought the problem here was overreaching state secrecy. How are faux constitutionalists forcing that outcome?

Re:Please, stop with the hype

[riverat1]

I believe the compromise was that appropriations for armies couldn't be for longer than 2 years. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12.

Strings or records?

[srussia]

Does the No-Fly List consist of just strings ($NAME) or is it a set of unique records?

Re:Strings or records?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a secret. Off to Gitmo for asking such questions!

Re:Strings or records?

[Anonymous Coward]

As I am given to understand it, the No-Fly list consists of a list of the names of known terrorists, terrorist suspects, and the aliases that they have used. Back in 2004, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy was stopped and questioned five times at airports because "T. Kennedy" was an alias used by a terrorist suspect. It took the senator and his staff more than three weeks to get his name removed -- a process likely to be more painful and time-consuming for the average individual who only has access to the DHS TRIP ('Traveler Redress Inquiry Program') site.

Re:Strings or records?

[jythie]

Or even worse... since it is a question related to implementation, they can sick the copyright lawyers on you...

Re:Strings or records?

[maxwell demon]

You think the two options are mutually exclusive?

Re:Strings or records?

[Cro Magnon]

Awhile back, 60 Minutes had a story on the No-Fly list, and there was a terrorist named "Robert Johnson", IIRC (if not, it was something similarly common), and a whole bunch of people were screwed from that one.

Re:Strings or records?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be easier to overflow the list with all common US names? I guess that doing so would prove the point of its usefulness rather quickly...

Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[kannibal_klown]

I like David E Kelley's Boston Legal in general. Granted, lots of people hated his shows because his main characters tended to go on rants and act as mouth-pieces for his political views, but I enjoyed his shows and think that even if you disagree that he would at least make good points about them.

Anyway, there was an episode about the No Fly list and that monologue always stuck with me.

The main character (Alan Shore) went on and on about how poorly contrived it was and how INSANE it was that a system that cost SOOOO much money was less advanced than an iPod that fits in his pocket. That the iPod could store meta-data AND pictures for 20,000+ items but the No Fly List only handled names. Names which could be faked AND shared with others.

How it's insane that in a country that has Google, Apple, and even small-yet-innovative companies that the contract went to a system as worthless as what became the no-fly-list.

The plot-point was "Denny Crane" couldn't even fly on his private jet because his name was an alias for a terrorist. Then the main character had a dozen+ people named Denny Crane from the Boston area to come in to show how ridiculous it was they couldn't fly (even the children).

The monologue was found here: http://www.boston-legal.org/script/BL03x12.pdf
But the delivery of it was quite solid and emotional.

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[Hatta]

The plot-point was "Denny Crane" couldn't even fly on his private jet because his name was an alias for a terrorist.

Private planes are exempt from TSA regulations. You don't get checked against the no-fly list, and you don't get groped. Those affluent enough to afford their own plane are above the rules the rest of us peons must obey.

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[Anonymous Coward]

And why do you think it should be otherwise?

Money is power, and the powerful can do things that benefit (or harm) you. So it is in your best interest (no matter who you are) to give them special treatment.

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[Hatta]

Spoken like a true authoritarian.

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[hawguy]

I like David E Kelley's Boston Legal in general. Granted, lots of people hated his shows because his main characters tended to go on rants and act as mouth-pieces for his political views, but I enjoyed his shows and think that even if you disagree that he would at least make good points about them.

Anyway, there was an episode about the No Fly list and that monologue always stuck with me.

The main character (Alan Shore) went on and on about how poorly contrived it was and how INSANE it was that a system that cost SOOOO much money was less advanced than an iPod that fits in his pocket. That the iPod could store meta-data AND pictures for 20,000+ items but the No Fly List only handled names. Names which could be faked AND shared with others.

An iPod is not a distributed database system, you're comparing apples and oranges.

Sure, there may be weaknesses in the no-fly list infrastructure, but claiming that it would somehow magically be better (and cheaper) if they just issued iPods to everyone and let them download no-fly-list updates from the Apple Store is not realistic - the iPod is just a display (and storage) device, it's no better than whatever computer is used to access the list today.

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[Bearhouse]

Actually, the rules surrounding private planes are pretty strict.
They're trying to make them even more so:
http://www.dhs.gov/general-aviation

Even as it is, there's a whole host of people who can turn up unannounced and check a number of things, including searching you and the airplane, without requiring a warrant, btw.

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[CrimsonAvenger]

but claiming that it would somehow magically be better (and cheaper) if they just issued iPods to everyone and let them download no-fly-list updates from the Apple Store is not realistic

Luckily for all of us (except you, perhaps) that OP made no such claim, and didn't even hint that that might be a solution.

What was actually suggested was that PICTURES accompany NAMES on the No-Fly List, since there are frequently multiple people with the same name in the USA (note that I have an unusual surname, and yet I've managed to run into several people who knew someone with my FULL NAME)...

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[kannibal_klown]

First, I realize this, I'm in IT. But it's a good monologue. Pocket device != large database.

Second: he wasn't saying give everyone an iPod. He was using it as an example, a token of "look what an innovative company can do... maybe hire THEM instead of some guy"

Even in 2001 (or whatever) the idea of a distributed system wasn't unheard of. Heck at our college we had access to large-infrastructure database systems shared among campuses across the country. Said databases had searchable articles with bilbiographic meta-data, images of the pages, and a whole bunch of features. I can't speak for whether it was encrypted but I do know you needed a login.

The systems are obviously already networked to be able to get to the (I imagine) encrypted database. I can't imagine a scenario where a 2001-era PC would have a hard time also getting extra meta-data besides just a names-list (age, gender, etc). Heck we were even doing pictures.

And as Alan Shore said in the monologue: this is a country with some innovative tech companies are there. Apple, Microsoft (yeh they count), Google, loads of small companies. All advanced. All innovative. All doing incredible things at the time.

And you're saying the best that they could do, after throwing billions of dollars at the problem, was come up with a simple encrypted names list? No meta-data? No pictures? Nothing?

Fine, maybe slightly more expensive but wouldn't it be better to have a BETTER system than a names list that count stops a 10-year-old from getting on a plane?

We've come a long way in 12 years. But even back then things were advanced enough to do a better job on the system they picked.

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[hawguy]

but claiming that it would somehow magically be better (and cheaper) if they just issued iPods to everyone and let them download no-fly-list updates from the Apple Store is not realistic

Luckily for all of us (except you, perhaps) that OP made no such claim, and didn't even hint that that might be a solution.

What was actually suggested was that PICTURES accompany NAMES on the No-Fly List, since there are frequently multiple people with the same name in the USA (note that I have an unusual surname, and yet I've managed to run into several people who knew someone with my FULL NAME)...

What did he mean by:

how INSANE it was that a system that cost SOOOO much money was less advanced than an iPod that fits in his pocket

He's comparing two entirely different things, he may as well complain that it's insane that a new car costs sooooo much more money than an iPod despite the fact that the only similarity between the two is that they both use CPU's and display devices.

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[Anonymous Coward]

TeeVee education. Lets get all our news and opinion from Jon Stewart too!

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[Hatta]

None of that includes the no-fly list, or passenger groping.

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[thomst]

CrimsonAvenger admitted:

(note that I have an unusual surname, and yet I've managed to run into several people who knew someone with my FULL NAME)...

Wait ... you've run into SEVERAL people who knew someone named CrimsonAvenger?

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[Anonymous Coward]

without requiring a warrant, btw.

Yet another way the government is violating the constitution... *sigh*

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, going against the grain of basic human psychology tends to get mixed results, and is hard to keep up for long.

Most people are pretty stupid, and not competent to govern themselves. They know what they want, of course, but are not capable of thinking the implications through. So, they empower others to achieve their political ends for them.

However, even with votes, achieving any political end at all requires real power, and obtaining power requires compromising with others who have power, so one with a political agenda cannot avoid a certian level of corruption. It is necessary to either sacrifice some ideology or sacrifice one's opportunity to accomplish anything at all. It is all basically downhill from there.

Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts"

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple fact is, there may not be any more meta-data to provide, or the meta-data may reveal too much information about it's source (ie, who could have taken that photo, etc). It isn't uncommon for data to be classified because the very nature of the data reveals information about the source... A picture of a terrorist may not be particularly sensitive, unless that terrorist can recognise that it was his "trusted advisor" who took that particular photo, and so use said advisor to paint a picture of what happens to "snitches"...

Re:TRUTH... apk

[lightknight]

From what I can tell, the latest attempt to destroy /., and it's working. Mods and others browse @ Score:0 or lower to keep a watch for abuses, and this constant spam is really getting annoying. Especially when a simple fix, like disable Anonymous first-posting, would slow it down.

Mod Judge up

[sl4shd0rk]

This is the same guy that headed off the Oracle vs. Java ruling disaster.

Re:Mod Judge up

[Beorytis]

Too bad we can't actually mod (and meta-mod!) our judges.

There should never have been a non-fly list

[enrevanche]

The real question is why there should even be a no-fly list. No U.S. citizen or legal resident should be denied their right to travel without due process.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Anonymous Coward]

This. A thousand times *this*.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. There is a long precedent of keeping lists of enemies of the state in the United States.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Anonymous Coward]

why?

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Opportunist]

What puzzled me to no end about this whole "no fly list" debacle was: Are these people dangerous only on a plane? Let's assume that list is actually accurate. You know what I mean, let's assume these people are dangerous. Dangerous enough that we'd have to assume they blow up a plane when we let them on one. Because, well, why else should they not be allowed on a plane?

Then why are they no threat at all if not on a plane?

This question alone makes the whole list questionable IMO. Either someone is a threat to national security or he is not. There's no "on a plane". It almost feels as sane as the "on the internet" laws.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[lcam]

Nobody is denying anyone the right to travel. You can stick out a thumb and hitchhike no problem.

The issue is using the airport infrastructure to aid in your travelling activities...

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the only reasonable way to travel between states in this country?

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Microlith]

No, in this case the Federal Government is denying the people on the list the right to travel. If not for their interference it is unlikely that anyone stopped by the list would otherwise have trouble getting on the plane and going to their destination.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[spire3661]

Show me a walking path from every origin to every destination in the US, and your point will be valid. Otherwise airports, roads, railways are REQUIRED to travel in the US, thus you should have to show SERIOUS and PUBLIC cause to deny right of travel.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is denying anyone the right to communicate. You can send a letter no problem.
The issue is using the telecommunication infrastructure to aid in your communication activities.

Nobody is denying anyone the right to communicate. You talk to people no problem.
The issue is using the mail deliver infrastructure to aid in your communication activities.

Nobody is denying anyone the right to make a living. You can start up your own business no problem.
The issue is using the job market to aid in your income generating activities.

Nobody is denying anyone the right to make a living. You can work for someone else no problem.
The issue is using the business license office to start up your own business

Nobody is denying anyone the right to eat. You can grow your own food no problem.
The issue is using transportation infrastructure to aid in your consumption activities.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Bearhouse]

Actually, as a non-USA resident I don't see why I should be denied access to a flight either, as long as I have a valid ticket, ID and visa etc. just because I shared a name with a suspected bad guy. Rights in the USA are only for citizens now? You don't think you should have rights when you come to Europe?

But rest assured, we have the same bullshit here too. Recently I was stopped while in transit in Switzerland because I have the same name as a guy who apparently did not pay his parking fines. The border guard said that they had to right to put me in prison until I paid. (I checked later; unbelievably this is true).
Fortunately I was able to prove that I was not the same guy...

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[lcam]

Travel on an airplane.

Try renting a car and driving, you will not find your travel impeded in any way.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[lcam]

Are you suggesting that TSA has a presence in the non-existent train stations or that they put up checkpoints on our motorways?

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[snadrus]

& I was thinking "...on a tablet" patents.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitchhiking is illegal in most US states:

http://www.hitchhiker.50megs.com/custom.html

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Rob the Bold]

Are you suggesting that TSA has a presence in the non-existent train stations or that they put up checkpoints on our motorways?

They have.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Beorytis]

There's no "on a plane".

Unless you're talking about snakes.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[MozeeToby]

Because freedom of movement is a basic human right. Seriously?

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[lcam]

I'm flabbergasted.

You win.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[DarkOx]

I tend to agree with you but there are two problems some are going argue of a legal perspective. There is no clearly enumerated right to travel. Yes the 10th Amendment should have enough tooth to cover you and I there but sadly a century of legal precedent (WRONG IMHO) does not support us. The second problem is like the parent poster did people are always going to insist as long as some mode of travel remains open to you; government should be allowed to restrict any particular mode of travel. Naturally all the particular ones will be all the practical ones.

What you do have is an explicit right to free assembly! Its there in plain ink! Now to assemble you must by definition go to where the assembly is taking place, and be there at the time it is taking place. Because of this I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that government should NOT be allowed to interfere with private travel as doing so interferes with your right to assemble with others. They should have to prepared to initiate some evidence based criminal process with court orders and warrants or leave you to your business.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[fuzznutz]

For now

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[lcam]

Yeah well, the trend is to tighten everything up. I think you are probably right. Another poster sent me a link that showed me the tragic reality of things.

A very very sad day for all of us.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Cro Magnon]

There's still a solution. Horses! I bet you can still go around on horses and not get stopped by the TSA.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[lcam]

Yeah, the problem is people put up fences so it's not as easy to cut across a field.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as your travel doesn't take you near the mexico border through Arizona where they've been running warrentless checkpoints. Sure, chances are you won't be waved off to secondary screening and you'll be on your way. Chances are the dogs won't signal at secondary screening. Chances are the charges against you for... whatever, will be dropped after you lawyer up.

Go ahead. Take your chance.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[HeckRuler]

The worst part about all this, besides the over-reach of inept agency and the slow descent into a police state:

To detect "threats to national security as well as immigration law violators"
X-ray trucks for "explosives, weapons, anything unusual", "radiation, explosives, and drugs".

You simply cannot trust people in a position of power to keep a narrow focus when you grant them broad and reaching powers to do a specific job. Once they have those tools, they ARE going to use them for anything and everything under the sun that they think they can help with. Part of it is the infatuation with a new toy. When all you have is hammer, or even when the hammer just solved a difficult problem for you, EVERYTHING starts looking like a nail. And it's natural. The people working in anti-terrorism department, spending all that time not finding any terrorists, feel the need to be productive and find another reason for doing their job. Nobody wants to lose their job.

I would LOVE to have some method of identifying everyone who really wanted to fuck over America. Or everyone that transported too much explosives. Or tried to make Anthrax. But the people that are trying to get the powers to do such things simply cannot be trusted with said power.

Because while certain immigration and certain drugs are a moderately bad thing, there is no fucking way I'm letting these piddly little problems justify the transformation of the USA into a police state.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[bigpat]

With reinforced cockpit doors, air marshals, hopefully good scanning to prevent weapons on airplanes and a general agreement that nobody is going to be allowed to ever hijack a plane again even if they do assault or kill people or scream about having a bomb the pilot is not going to relinquish control of the plane.... having no-fly lists does now seem superfluous and fundamentally the wrong approach to take.

That said, airlines are still private businesses serving the public and if they are given information that you will potentially be disruptive, then it should be within their right to deny you passage on their aircraft for whatever reason as long as that reason isn't discriminatory using constitutionally protected criteria such as race, or political affiliation, or gender or such. In the same way that a restaurant can refuse to serve someone because of their past behavior. The problem now is that that choice is being made for them.

Regardless, the no-fly list is a determination by someone that you have met some criteria to be kept off of planes, so if we are to remain a nation of laws then people need to be able to effectively challenge that in court. And that means confronting your accuser and challenging all the evidence used in that determination. Otherwise, if we are talking about classified information, then what we should be talking about is surveillance that stays in the realm of surveillance.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Dorianny]

The idea is to limit their freedom of movement, especially in and out of the country.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

That said, airlines are still private businesses serving the public

And recipients of massive amounts of public largess - both directly in the form of decades of bailouts and indirectly in the form of a million government services like pension take overs. At best they are pseudo-private organizations so in terms of being able to discriminate against customers I say they need to be held to the same standard as the federal government rather private business.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[eyegone]

Google "common carrier".

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Type44Q]

Try renting a car and driving, you will not find your travel impeded in any way.

Correct; there are no such things as TSA Viper teams. Repeat it twice if you have to.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Type44Q]

Rights in the USA are only for citizens now?

If you've been following the news over the past twelve or so years, they apparently aren't for anyone anymore...

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless, the no-fly list is a determination by someone that you have met some criteria to be kept off of planes, so if we are to remain a nation of laws then people need to be able to effectively challenge that in court. And that means confronting your accuser and challenging all the evidence used in that determination. Otherwise, if we are talking about classified information, then what we should be talking about is surveillance that stays in the realm of surveillance.

From whence derives this standard? It seems that we've arrived here from a slippery slope:

At the outset we agreed that designated executive-branch officials officials may seek from the judicial branch permission to perform a search of an individual or their possessions for specific evidence of their participation in a specific crime.

Then, we agreed that because of the nature of criminality, investigatory advancements, and national security issues, certain of these permissions to search an individual or their possessions must entail a limited form of secrecy from the person to be searched, so as not to allow the destruction of evidence or other impediment of an investigation in progress. We also decided that certain permissions may be supplied on an on-going basis, not merely to include a single search but a continuous process of monitoring over a specified length of time.

Now, we have arrived at the point where certain officials may, upon suspicion of criminality, surveil and impede the actions of designated individuals for an unlimited amount of time, without the knowledge of the person to be subjected to the surveillance or restrictions, and without much if any specificity on what they're searching or searching for, solely on the judgement of the executive branch alone without any checks or balances from the other branches?

Even if we accept that "surveillance" is different and less severe than "impediment of activity" such as not being allowed to fly, why should we be any more accepting of that? How did our standard transform from a warrant issued by a judge upon specific probable cause specifying the person or places to be searched, into a seemingly unlimited and unchecked regime of secret surveillance?

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Anonymous Coward]

There is something called "the ADEX List" which is the Federal Government's equivelent of a "Black List" and "Grey List". Google for "Black List" and you will see what I mean. The ADEX is very closely held and is distributed on a DVD which has all kinds of NSA-approved encryption and other safeguards on it. It is "The List" which will be used when it comes time for the Federal Government to mobilize DHS/FEMA and detain people who are on said Black List. That means, "off to the camps" for the tin-foil hat folks. Unfurtunately, none of the various government agencies which have anything to do with a ADEX or the No-Fly or any number of other "lists" and "Lists of Lists" coordinate with each other. Each agency has it's own little bowl of rice and guards it greatly. What will happen when the Shit Hits The Fan is that al of these lists (Federal, State and Local) will come together and folks on the list will most likely have to be strung up and hanged a dozen different times before the whole process is finished. I'm not a tin-foil hat guy, just have a wide-ranging set of ideas about what the US Government is going to end up as, to destroy a correct sentence.

Re:There should never have been a non-fly list

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately I was able to prove that I was not the same guy...

May I have your permission to contact you the next time I need to prove a negative?

How?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I want to know is how someone with a clue became a federal judge? Was he given a chemical lobotomy that lasted just long enough for him to get the position?

The race is on to figure out how this happened and make it happen more often before the rest of the government manages to shut it down.

Re:TRUTH... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

I browse at -1, and it's not really annoying. All I have to do is collapse the entire comment thread.

parasite

[Anonymous Coward]

APK is a parasitic creature, nestled between mountainous testes, sucking the life out of them. AKA, a queer sumbitch.

Fix this exploit, Slashdot! No one likes to scroll for three minutes to get past the spam!

No-fly list should be a no fly

[Snotnose]

I can't wrap my brain around the no-fly list. You can't find out if your on it until you're denied boarding. You can't find out how you got on it. You can't get off it once your on it. That's constitutional how? Oh, I forgot. Bush tossed the constitution out on it's ear 9/12/01.

Why doesn't some hacker group like anonymous start putting politicians and staffers on the damn thing so we can all watch the fun?

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[JackieBrown]

Bush tossed the constitution out on it's ear 9/12/01.

Good thing he's gone and it's all better. It's well past time to hold the "new" regime responsible for its own abuse.

I know you never said it wasn't Obama's fault, but when you continue to blame Bush for what Obama is doing, it helps create a cover for him.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[lcam]

The constitution is alive and well; the First 7 articles are alive and very well. It's the bill of rights that was add as a compromise in 1792 so that a few state representatives would feel confortable with the document and sign that is "under fire".

However if you consider your rights to be self evident, you don't need a document defining those rights for you.

Understanding is not a requisite of cooperation or fulfillment of citizen related beneficiary obligations: obey the law, pay taxes and submit to jury duty. If you have a problem with the way government is conducting business, you should take more action about those issues than rant about stuff on /. or making suggestions that some hackers take actions that would threaten the dignity of our public servants or the policies they choose to implement. That type of action will only justify a reaction that will result in new policies that are more similar to the proverbial "shaved, sterilized and destroyed" processing of our remaining freedoms.

The single best way to make changes is to get people in your community organized in a way that can productively send a clear and constructive message to our leaders.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[Pirulo]

please mode parent up

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[Anonymous Coward]

We're on Obama term 2, so get the fuck over it. Things have only gotten worse.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[Anonymous Coward]

Because thats the job of merkin citzens , after all you claim to be home of the brave and land of the free.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[deblau]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17073-2004Aug19.html

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[snadrus]

They're our representatives, not our leaders. This is a democracy, not militaristic rule.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[ak3ldama]

Haven't you heard? He's a great president.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[Danathar]

"The single best way to make changes is to get people in your community organized in a way that can productively send a clear and constructive message to our leaders."

That may be the BEST way.

But largely it's ineffective.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[cmdr_klarg]

Good thing he's gone and it's all better. It's well past time to hold the "new" regime responsible for its own abuse.

I know you never said it wasn't Obama's fault, but when you continue to blame Bush for what Obama is doing, it helps create a cover for him.

The fact that Obama commits the same sins does not excuse Bush43 from committing them in the first place.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wrap my brain around the no-fly list. You can't find out if your on it until you're denied boarding. You can't find out how you got on it. You can't get off it once your on it. That's constitutional how? Oh, I forgot. Bush tossed the constitution out on it's ear 9/12/01.

Why doesn't some hacker group like anonymous start putting politicians and staffers on the damn thing so we can all watch the fun?

because they are on exception list.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[lcam]

Are you sure about that? or is it just semantics.

We certainly don't have a direct democracy; your vote is merely an optional symbolic show of support for your "representative". Voting is not even an obligation of a citizen; they don't even try to hide how little it really means, or the minimal value our opinions hold.

A citizen has 3 obligations: obey the law, pay taxes, and subject to jury duty. One for each branch of government. I don't see voting anywhere in that list as a symbolic type of action for government related "decision making".

If your representative incidentally speaks or acts on your behalf and you can do nothing to intercede since you have neither the place or the means to make a protest, does it matter what it's called if people view their rule a militaristic or representative type of governance?

How often are public protests or even public opinion on a topic simply ignored by our "representatives" as they carry on with their day to day?

So yes, they are our leaders and we depend on their decisions as leaders so that our futures may be secure. And as a final point the term "Senator" or "Representative" as prefixed to the name of an elected official in the senate or house is a title of nobility. Citizen is another one. Why do you think that is? Do you even know that the implications of titles of nobility are?

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[lcam]

You are right, of course.

The point is, without community level organization, people (the public) are disorganized. The first step is to bring everyone together.

One community may be easily ignored, but how about an entire state of communities, or the majority of communities in most states.

Think of it like a large corporation, except that it's corporate goal is not profit, but the interests of its members.

I would call it a church, except that that term comes with too many pre-conceptions based on the Christianity. Instead of worshiping a deity and the sacrifice of our savior, the worship would be directed towards our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, the organization would work towards those ends.

The problem is people still think blowing stuff up or shooting is a better form of protest as though some savior would see the disperate plight behind such a protest and take constructive affirmative actions. That doesn't happen, the nail that sticks out get's hammered.

There is a reason our leaders have chosen to expand our prison infra rather than build new colleges.

Some people just figure, "hell with it" and do outrageous things and the rest of us get caught up with the TV based propaganda and become afraid to do anything, instead of take the first small steps.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[GodfatherofSoul]

I'm not saying that Obama hasn't done the same thing (that I know of), but when the no-fly list first came out there were Democrats (like Kennedy) and liberal activists who were magically finding themselves on the list with no explanation or clear path to get off it.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[DarkOx]

Making suggestions that some hackers take actions that would threaten the dignity of our public servants or the policies they choose to implement.

They would have to still have dignity. If you want people to respect the law than the law needs to be respectable. If government officials don't want to be called liars; they need to stop spreading disinformation.

What is wrong with ranting on Slashdot anyway? How is it so different than the pamphleteers of yesteryear? Sorry I don't agree. We absolutely should attack and lampoon dear old uncle Sam. We absolutely should attempt to built contempt and vitriol among the population toward him. That is how you get change. That is how you eventually push people to take the risk of throwing the bums out of office.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets have a bipartisan compromise - put both Bush and Obama before international law.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[lcam]

I agree with your points about the law needing to be respectable and your surrounding viewpoints.

Nothing wrong with rants on /. that's why it's here, although a word of caution. I wouldn't want to incite social disorder on a monitored online forum.

If a rev0lut!on of some sort is to happen, there needs to be a definite plan with a long term strategy. If your strategy is not sound, you risk committing your "fast adopter" contempt group into positions that will compromise those resources for no definite gain.

The best way to throw the bums out of office is to vote them out, but to do that, you need to put forth a champion who can withstand the election process and remain faithful to the true values of your movement.

The idea of a popular uprising needs to be done in a way that does not justify the use of armed forces to prevent social disruption. Regardless of any Weapons Ban Act or the such, the police and government are much much better suited to handle a fighting confrontation than a political one. They have all the guns and military leadership they need to take on entire countries. Throwing stones will just get you sent to the brig where you can contemplate whether the pain of getting shot in the shoulder or hip was worth it.

If you need proof: the Israelis successfully have managed to keep the Palestinians under control for more that 200 years through their various uprisings, and not because the Palestinians where not willing to give their lives for what they believed or because they are not organized, but because their strategy is to confront their opposition where they are strongest. Their strategy is to appeal to international sympathy. It does not work. Nobody is sympathetic to the trouble-makers.

People need to get organized in a political and economic way. The population need to channel their desire for change into an organization or organizations that can displace both political parties without succumbing to the temptations of corruption.

The people need to overcome the media induced fear, the propaganda on TV, and start to listen to a community leader who will obviously need to coordinate his/her community with the organizational goals. Because the issues are so polarizing, it should be quite a bit easier to put something together than if things where more moderate. But it still remains a monumental feat.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[Cro Magnon]

No, but it means it's not a Bush43 problem. It's a "leaders of both parties are assholes" problem.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[JackieBrown]

No it doesn't, but focusing on the past president without even mentioning the current is a irresponsible.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[srmalloy]

However if you consider your rights to be self evident, you don't need a document defining those rights for you.

The purpose wasn't to define them for you, it was to enumerate them as being specifically beyond the ability of the government to take away. Unfortunately, the interpretation of the Constitution has gone from the original "The government is empowered to act only where specifically granted authority" to "The government is empowered to act whenever not specifically denied authority, and if government lawyers can come up with some pretzel-like, taken-out-of-context, and misinterpreted reading of a specific prohibition that makes it not say what the plain text says, then the government can act there, too."

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[anagama]

They're our representatives, not our leaders.

Can you send me a check for $5,000,000? Really I mean it, you must be very wealthy given that you have representatives in Congress.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[Shompol]

leaders of both parties are puppets of undisclosed entities who rule this country by pulling strings from behind a curtain

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[lcam]

You are correct.

Plus, words that where defined one way have gradually had their official definition altered over the years... Try looking at how definitions of certain words have changed from Blacks Law 3rd edition to the 7th edition.

You want control of the law? You need only rewrite the dictionary. adverb-verb fictions are your friend.

This gradual and constant inflection leads to the declensions of the self-evident in all areas, not just how government interpretes the authority granted to it. These change of the presumptions and interpretations occur in a way that only invades that which is self-evident.

The fact is most of what happens in court is based on presumptions that are only known by a few. Another example of segregation through information.

The trick works because these changes are done over a 200 hundred years so that any one generation just labels it as "the changing of the times" whereas the actuality can be much more sinister. And all this is done in the name of progress.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[cmdr_klarg]

No it doesn't, but focusing on the past president without even mentioning the current is a irresponsible.

Perhaps, but bear in mind that without Bush43 enacting those shitty policies Obama would not be able to continue them now. Credit must be given where credit is due.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[ebno-10db]

Unfortunately, the interpretation of the Constitution has gone from the original "The government is empowered to act only where specifically granted authority" to "The government is empowered to act whenever not specifically denied authority ...

Blame Jefferson and Madison. They were the original "strict constructionists", but knowingly threw away that philosophy in order to make the Louisiana Purchase. It was never universally shared by the authors and signers of the Constitution (Washington and Hamilton never believed in it), and even its proponents killed it 210 years ago. Time to accept that.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but it certainly does NOT excuse the current administration for continuing the policies and extending them, for which pretty much everyone, including the media seems to give the Obama administration.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[russotto]

I can't wrap my brain around the no-fly list. You can't find out if your on it until you're denied boarding. You can't find out how you got on it. You can't get off it once your on it. That's constitutional how?

It only violates the bill of attainder provision of the main constitution and the fifth amendment. You need to violate at least three more provisions before something can be considered unconstitutional.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[CrimsonAvenger]

the Israelis successfully have managed to keep the Palestinians under control for more that 200 years

Hmm, that's a neat trick, considering that Israel has only been around for 65 years.

Even being generous by going back to the first emigration of European Jews to what is now Israel, we're talking less than 150 years (and the Jews didn't do a whole lot of dominating the Palestinians while they were under Ottoman rule for the first 50 years).

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[Anonymous Coward]

Accept that the government is blatantly violating the constitution? No thanks.

Re:No-fly list should be a no fly

[lcam]

Ok 65 years. Timeline error aside, my point being nobody holds their dominance against them, rather to the contrary.

Alsup is a solitary voice of reason

[gweihir]

I bet they are working hard to get rid of him as soon as possible. Can't have irrelevant things like fundamental legal principles slow down the establishment of a police state.

Alsup for supreme court

[Anonymous Coward]

I will vote any candidate that will make that happen.

Government Lists A Bad Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Has a government making lists of people ever ended well?

TheOnion got there first

[Anonymous Coward]

The single best way to make changes is to get people in your community organized in a way that can productively send a clear and constructive message to our leaders.

You mean like a citizen's lobby?

Court Mandated No-Fly Lists

[inhuman_4]

The whole system by which the No-Fly list operates is stupid. If the government wants to have a no fly list, then they should have to justify to a court putting someone on that list, before the name goes on it.

If you want to search someone's house you need a warrant. If you want to tap someone's phone you need a warrant. So why don't you need a warrant to stop them from flying? It just seems stupid to me. Also when does your name of this No-Fly list expire? Wire taps expire, warrants expire, so how come you can be put on a No-Fly list indefinitely?

Re:Court Mandated No-Fly Lists

[cheekyjohnson]

If you want to tap someone's phone you need a warrant.

Are you sure about that?

Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if this is a judge who is aftraid for his life from a lot of pissed off citizens, or is he simply a good judge that all the other judges in the country should learn from his example.

How do no-fly lists work?

[backslashdot]

The government isn't allowed to take actions against people and deny them certain freedoms if they haven't been convicted of a crime. At the very least, they should be told why they are being denied the flight.

"No person shall [...] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; [..]"

Fifth amendment:

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Basic grammar dictate that the exemption for wartime is only when you are holding someone .. and that too it means you don't have to convene a grand jury.

An Employment Ploy!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just a ploy to prevent the well educated from leaving for their countries of origin. The Uncle Sam needs you and you're not getting anywhere!

horses for courses

[Anonymous Coward]

Fence, pshaw.. get a suitable horse and jump over the fence.

Who is responsible ?

[Taco Cowboy]

The Executive branch claims it and it alone can authorize access to classified information.

I really do not care who claims what and who is authorize to do what

What I want to know is this --- WHO THE FUCK IS GOING TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY WHEN THINGS GO WRONG ?

Take the case of the Boston Marathon bombing - those two were not listed in the "no fly list", although the elder brother was questioned by the FBI, after getting tip from the Russian government

Is FBI going to take responsibility for THEIR FAILURE TO STOP THE BOMBING ?

Is the Obama administration going to take responsibility for letting the two cold-blooded bastards into the United States of America ??

3 people died and over 200 injured, and NO-FUCKING-BODY TAKES ANY RESPONSIBILITY !!!

This is *NOT* the America that I know, and as an America, I am VERY ANGRY at what is happening !!

Re:Who is responsible ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Take responsibility for what? It's easy from your chair now that you have an idea of who did it but 1 minute before they blew up the bombs, no one else knew. I often buy potasioum percholate and fine aluminum powder, enough that I got an official letter from the justice department letting me know that they know I've been buying it. I also have a passport and have flown to other countries (vacations and work), should I be arrested? Should I be followed and my every move tracked? Some would think so but I am not hurting anyone but potentially myself with my hobby. If someone is tracking me, that is less resources used to track someone that intends harm. You can not stop things like the Boston bombing, face reality, stop beleiving the security theater and get on with your life. more than 2 people died in the Boston area from car crashes that same day. Even though there were probably 100k in the Boston area that day, only 2 people died (I am not down playing the human life lost), my point is at what expense and what freedoms should we as US citizens give up to try to stop the unstoppable? Statically, what is the real risk from this compared to the hazards of everyday life? What if the federal government spent the money they are spending on terrorst recon on a cure for Cancer? How many lives would be saved compared to trying to stop a random bombing?

Re:Who is responsible ?

[Anonymous Coward]

continue.

A lot of the same people that have grabbed their pitch forks and are glued to the tv watching the bomb coverage and are in fear are also going out for a few drinks on the weekend and driving home drunk. They are afraid and want the government to do something about terrorism but have no problem putting others at risk from their own actions. A DUI that kills two people does not get the POTUS in front of the camera shedding a tear for votes. It does not get 24hr news coverage. It is the SAME two people that could have died from a terrorist but oddly no one seems to care.

Dated info on whistle blowers

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad, but true. As an update, Obama now actually has a worse record on prosecuting whistle blowers than all previous administrations. Combined. Transparent indeed.

Re:Dated info on whistle blowers

[anagama]

That's actually old news from early in his presidency:

From 2010:
War on whistle-blowers intensifies: http://www.salon.com/2010/05/25/whistleblowers_2/

Here are the six whistleblowers prosecuted under the espionage act:
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/01/six-americans-obama-and-holder-charged-under-the-espionage-act-and-one-bonus-whistleblower.htm

Re:in a country that has Google, Apple,

[Errol backfiring]

in a country that has Google, Apple,...

in a country that has Google, Apple, and the cattle that simply adores them, nothing is insane.

Re:in a country that has Google, Apple,

[kannibal_klown]

Fine, Apple and Google and the rest are WAY over-rated. And as I said, tons of smaller yet innovative firms were around.

But considering the work they've done in the past, did around the time of Do Not Fly list, and have done since... tapping a decent firm to put something together would have solved a lot of issues.

In 2001, there is no excuse for this multi-billion dollar system to only be a names-list and nothing else. So picking some firm or some guy who just threw something together quickly and accepting "that's the best that can be done" with something so pitiful is poor judgement.

Jeremiah Cornelius: Grow up

[Anonymous Coward]

You're embarassing yourself Jeremiah Cornelius http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3581857&cid=43276741 since you posted that using your registered username by mistake (instead of your usual anonymous coward submissions by the 100's the past 2-3 months now on slashdot) giving away it's you spamming this forums almost constantly, just as you have in the post I just replied to.

Re:Jeremiah Cornelius: Grow up

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Paul.

p.s. What do you make of this?

Re:Jeremiah Cornelius: Grow up

[Anonymous Coward]

Paul, you fail it. Your skill is not enough.

Re:Jeremiah Cornelius: Grow up

[Anonymous Coward]

Forty Two Tenfold has Jeremiah Cornelius = "friend" in his account on /. = obvious he's a sockpuppet account you, Jeremiah Cornelius, use. Yes we know it's you Jeremiah Cornelius that I am replying to now, you off topic troll. Jeremiah Cornelius, you blew it with your 100's of anonymous coward trollings by accidentally submitting one of them by your registered username here Jeremiah Cornelius http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3581857&cid=43276741 and you, Jeremiah Cornelius failed badly giving yourself away troll. Doing sock puppets along with that? No big trick to the likes of you, clearly caught in the act in that link above..