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One Strike Against No Fly List; More Scrutiny To Come
New submitter MickyTheIdiot writes "The Jurist reports: 'A judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon ruled Wednesday (PDF) that those placed on the U.S. government's no-fly list have 'a constitutionally-protected liberty interest in traveling internationally by air, which is affected by being placed on the No Fly List.' The plaintiffs in the case are 13 U.S. citizens who were denied boarding on flights over U.S. airspace after January 2009.' Judge Anna Brown hasn't ruled on the constitutionality of the No Fly List yet, and has instructed the attorneys involved to present a roadmap for deciding the remaining issues. However, she has acknowledged that the No Fly List is a major burden to those on the list and they have the right to get that status reviewed."
IIRC back in '72 an El Al flight was hijacked. Since that time
no El Al flight has been hijacked. Now what was it they did to pevent
such thing? Hmmmm - OK I remember - armed guards. If you
steal an EL Al flight - they shoot you!
Next what did/does this cure cost in time and money?
Next problem please.
There is no Right to Drive in the US, where driving is a rather a privilege.
In the Articles of Confederation, the following right is explicitly granted:
"the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce"
-- Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, Article IV, Paragraph 1
This document is still technically a part of the United States Code, although I haven't seen it cited as rationale in a legal argument for preventing the "no fly list". This is also one of the few individual freedoms explicitly mentioned in founding documents that is not a part of the Constitution of 1787. As to if this document still holds legal weight could also be questioned, I suppose, but technically all the Constitution of 1787 did was update this document. It certainly puts such notions of "it is a privilege not a right" legal theories into serious question.
In other words, the right to travel is an explicitly granted constitutional right and not something that can be extrapolated more loosely from things like the 9th Amendment (which I think this quote amply shows something previously thought of as an individual right not to be eliminated by its absence in other legal documents).
You might be able to argue that the internal combustion engine itself is regulated and requires an operator's permit, although that is a real stretch. States simply can't prohibit either entry or exit of other otherwise legal citizens of other states and it can be assumed that includes travel internal to that state too.