Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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.