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Gov't Puts Witness On No Fly List, Then Denies Having Done So
cathyreisenwitz sends word of a San Francisco trial in which the U.S. government appears to be manipulating the no-fly list to its advantage. The court case involves a Stanford Ph.D. student who was barred from returning to the U.S. after visiting her native Malaysia. She's one of roughly 700,000 people on the no-fly list. Here's the sketchy part: the woman's eldest daughter, who was born in the U.S. and is a U.S. citizen, was called as a witness for the trial. Unfortunately, she mysteriously found herself on the no-fly list as well, and wasn't able to board a plane to come to the trial. Lawyers for the Department of Justice told the court that she simply missed her plane, but she was able to provide documents from the airline explaining that the Department of Homeland Security was not allowing her to fly.
You are no longer free to move about the country.
Flying is a privilege, not a right. She can just drive to court.
It's not like we don't have interstate highways in every state in the union.
Judge presiding over this case - William Alsup. The one who threw away Oracle Java APIs lawsuit agains Google.
//queue scene from Casablanca
//end scene
I'm SHOCKED! There's gambling going on here!
Seems the left hand does, or does not know, what the right hand is doing in this case.
Anyone else getting really tired of the US Gov. in general? Wah wah at least it didn't happen to me... right?
In all seriousness, I'd like to do something about it, more than write my congressman and senator. But what's left? It's not apathy I'm feeling anymore. It's disgust and resentment.
Oh. I know. WAIT, WAIT!!! Isolated incident.... /sorry, venting... just had a job interview
Too much of this BS going on these days to be merely negligence , ignorance and incompetence.
Yeah, the NSA would never abuse all that personal data it's hovering up.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Don't get out your popcorn just yet. From the article:
But Judge Alsup noted that the document with the DHS instructions to the airline was not supported by any sworn testimony or evidence of its authenticity. “You have to have a sworn record before I can do something dramatic.” Judge Alsup said he would consider the document if and when Ms. Mustafa Kamal arrives in San Francisco and can testify as to its authenticity.
Ms. Pipkin said that Ms. Mustafa Kamal was reluctant to spend the money on another airline ticket to San Francisco without some assurance that this time she would be allowed to board her flight.
“Get her on an airplane and get her here,” Judge Alsup responded. “She’s a U.S. citizen. She doesn’t need a visa. I’m not going to believe that she can’t get on a plane until she tries again. ” And Mr Freeborne, with disingenuous faux-solicitude, claimed that the government is “willing to do whatever we can to facilitate” Ms. Mustafa Kamal’s ability to board a flight to the U.S.
Flying is a privilege, not a right. She can just drive to court.
It's not like we don't have interstate highways in every state in the union.
For those who hadn't noticed, I'm referring to an INTERstate road on an island, while also parodying a government legal rationalization and general ignorance of geography and logic by the US.
For those who still can't figure it out... yes, it's humor.
For those who did figure it out... check out all the people here who couldn't figure this out!
We have all learned to our chagrin that this is what has become of the rule of law in our day and age. There is no law, there are no rules. The Constitution no longer applies. There is only rule by fiat. That's a very shaky basis for a society. It will not end well for those promulgating this state of affairs. There are hundreds of millions more of us than there are of them, and we are heavily armed and educated. Everything we need to track down and hang the 1%.
Chew and digest.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
The blog was not evidence the DHS document provided by the Malaysian airline was. And it still wasn't fully accepted without her sworn testimony (that SHE COULD NOT GIVE AS SHE COULD NOT FLY TO APPEAR IN COURT.)
This is the US government basically refusing entry to a US citizen. Sorry but there is no law that allows the US government to refuse a citizen's entry. They do have a right to freely travel within our borders.
Thank you, Louis CK.
In C++, your friends can see your privates.
As if we needed yet another reminder, this shows us in all sorts of ways how bad big government really is. Either they abused the list to keep a witness out, or they really COULDN'T tell she was on the list which means the list is an utter unmanageable clusterfuck.
Either way this is the result when government is allowed to grow too large and too powerful, abuse and mismanagement grow exponentially. Remember this come any election, always vote for the guy that wants to give you less, not more.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You could dig through the links and actually find the evidence.
Please provide a reference to your screed.
There is *NO* other evidence that this event took place *except* the blog post.
I can write a blog TODAY that says anything I want/
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
What are laws but the playthings of the rich and powerful to be used and discarded at will? They're like a blanket in a blizzard: designed to keep you warm, but when the storm strikes, utterly useless.
should but won't. mabey in another decade.
The only diffrence between now, and the 1970s, is that we don't even have a single shred of pretense of freedom left. No one is even going to bother with a new church commission.
Or we might have to wait for a powerful CIA/FBI figure like hover to expire, before they get lax enough to stop threatening senators to keep it quiet, because that is how Hoover stayed in power so long.
Alsop is the Judge. One of the few good ones left. He'll probably Fillet the DOJ and serve them up for lunch. Unfortunately, the DOJ will appeal when they don't get their way.
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
... I would have called this a fringe conspiracy theory.
Now I call it the new normal.
Without blogs this kind of event will be completely ignored. It's not like we have a functioning independent press any more, so blogs pick up some of the slack. Although this is an important instance of how the legal system has been rendered non-functional, it's not the kind of stupid mindless drama that passes as "news". The lack of attention is one of the mechanisms that is used to erode basic rights and let the government get away with this crap.
Why is Snark Required?
He's easily one of the (if not THE) best sitting judge in the country.
.: Semper Absurda
Imagine this sequence of events:
1. A perfectly legal subpoena is issued for someone to appear as a witness, while they're a plane's flight away from home.
2. Put witness on no-fly list.
3. Cite witness for contempt of court for failing to appear.
Boom, you now have a tool for the intelligence community, with the help of a friendly (or blackmailed) judge to put anyone away they like, for any reason they like, at least for a little while. And sure, the contempt citation would eventually be reversed on appeal due to the obvious entrapment issue (the government caused the witness to fail to appear due to its own actions), but by then whoever was targeted has already had their life thoroughly screwed up.
I am officially gone from
What are they teaching lawyers these days? That it's OK to commit perjury? Who wants to see the lying lawyers spend some time in jail? Raise your hand.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Question: Does the judge have the authority to command an army of paramilitary police with ACTUAL assault weapons and armored vehicles? The DoJ does.
Another question: Despite the courts ruling that the Washington DC ban on firearms was unconstitutional, the law continues to be enforced. What weight does a judge's ruling have any longer?
The government (the executive) follows the law when it's convenient. It breaks the law when the law is inconvenient. And no one is interested in countering it.
I really have to congratulate you. Reading the long string of replies from idiots who didn't follow the link and/or get the joke is hilarious.
It's like I touched the third rail of the internet. I am astonished.
Can you point to a ban on firearms in Washington DC? No, you can't because such a thing never existed. They did ban handgun ownership, which was rightfully (IMO) overturned by the courts. But if you're going to be claiming that the DC police are still preventing anyone from owning a handgun in the district, which is what I assume you mean by a "ban on firearms," I think you need to provide a citation for that. The NRA would have a field day with that if it were happening.
Well you have reached a relatively sharp but small demographic. Let's try to get this on the "consumer media." (I am creating new words which better describe what they are. Mainstream media just doesn't describe them any longer as they are losing their relevance for so many. But they still remain the consumer media as they still control the minds of so many consumers out there.)
Simple:
Jail time - give prosecutor what he would have ask for jail time for student.
Track down at least 5 more people involved in this conspiracy.
One of 5 must be a very significant political person (read Administration/Senator/etc),
and 2 of 5 mid-level manager level conspirators, and 1 of 5 a low-level person (IT person or such.)
Send the message high and low - all will get hurt for this sh-t!
Another question. Can't the judge summarily rule against the government since they wouldn't allow the person to testify? Essentially they've denied a fair trial and he could just drop the hammer.
I'll simply ask you to google "Adam Kokesh." He has been charged with violation of that ban. As a form of protest, he went into DC with a shotgun, turned on a video camera, loaded and made ready his weapon and then posted it on the internet.
Please learn and stop presuming. The NRA is a lobby group. They are still fighting that and many other laws. Lobbyists are most effective at preventing new law and helping to write new law. That's what lobbyists do.
The NY Times is not just a blog.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/us/07watch.html?pagewanted=all
How about just google it? Or read a news story or two.
Fuck me! I mean....Fuck you!
Works even better when you disbar them, and permanently fire them from govt service and remove their pension...
I couldn't find "Zoe vs. Williams" in the 1982 registry. "Zobel vs..." is something about Alaska mineral resource dividends.
Were you thinking of a different case?
Because Big Corporation is better?
Q: Which cut of Brazil does the Netflix stream (no I don't have a netflix account)? Hopefully not the atrocious "Love Conquers All" version...
No, he's been charged with possession of drugs AND a firearm, in VIRGINIA, Not DC. "Kokesh was originally arrested July 9 after a police search of his suburban Washington home in Herndon, Virginia, found a firearm and an illicit drug, an illegal combination in the state of Virginia."
Also this guy is the son of the guy who owns Dakota Rifles.
Emily Gets Her Gun is a book on the topic. The author tried to get a handgun permit in DC and detailed the obstruction she was given by the city government, who is acting as though the handgun ban was never overturned.
If the past is any indicator, the judge is going to tell the DOJ to EABOD.
So what? The DoJ is under no obligation to listen, or heed the Judge's ruling. Remember what happened the last time the Judicial Branch tried to tell the Executive Branch it couldn't do something? The Trail of Tears was the result. The Judicial Branch has no ability to enforce its rulings at all.
Not only is there no ban on firearms in DC, there is not citation you can give to back up your claims. Please prove me wrong.
Done and done. Check out Emily Gets Her Gun, which is a book about the topic. Asshole.
All your rights are free, but you're not permitted to have either Rights or Freedoms.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
How many innocents are you willing to kill in the name of your revolution? At what pre-determined point does the blood flow stop? And is there forgiveness for your enemies, and leniency available? Or are you simply going to kill anyone who is the enemy, extend that to any who don't agree with you, and stop only when there's no one left to shoot at?
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
He was arrested in Virginia on those charges, yes, however while he in custody he was also arrested on the Federal charges
Adam Kokesh, a controversial activist seen loading a gun in D.C.'s Freedom Plaza in a video posted to YouTube July 4, has been transferred from Fairfax County and charged in D.C. with openly carrying a shotgun in violation of D.C. laws.
He is specifically being charged with violating the following offense:
Carrying a Rifle or Shotgun (outside Home or Place of Business), in violation of 22 D.C. Code Section 4504 (a-1) (2001 ed.)).
Another question. Can't the judge summarily rule against the government since they wouldn't allow the person to testify? Essentially they've denied a fair trial and he could just drop the hammer.
It is a good thing I am not a member of the bar...
I think you are wondering if he can dismiss the case....
Yes he can.
I am wondering if he can dismiss the case with prejudice so it cannot be refiled.
I hope he can.
I am wondering if he can incarcerate the entire prosecution team
for contempt of court.
I hope he does if it is clear that they tampered with witnesses.
It is a federal crime to tamper with witnesses and conspiracy amplifies
the reach of the crime.
The recent revelation of a false conviction based on withheld evidence
by the prosecution makes me want to see 4x penalty. The man spent
25 some years in jail. Those that knew should be locked up for 100 years
and have their lives turned inside out. Abuse of power is difficult
to tolerate.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
"John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!"
--Andrew Jackson?
Yeah, the authenticity is in question, but the idea was still used in Andrew Jackson's time.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Remember what happened the last time the Judicial Branch tried to tell the Executive Branch it couldn't do something? The Trail of Tears was the result.
Next time spend two seconds on Google before you start spewing such crap. You're off by a few orders of magnitude. The last time the Judicial branch told the Executive it couldn't do something was most certainly NOT the Trail of Tears. That was almost 200 years ago. Here's one case that was less than six months ago:
http://executivebranchproject.com/supreme-court-once-again-unanimously-rules-against-the-obama-administration-in-property-rights-case/
That is not the same law that was overturned. The USSC did not strike down all gun control in DC. They struck down a limited portion of the handgun restrictions.
You need to go back to high school and learn how to read.
I cannot wait until government puts a congressman on the no fly list to prevent him from voting..
Do you have proof that Dr. Rahimah Ibrahim is a member of UMNO? Citation is needed if you have proof.
that's just fear mongering by the airline industry.
FUCK YOU.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Don't worry, it will get easier to tell them apart soon enough.......
Alsup! Everything.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I have a feeling that anyone in this case could be either outright lying, or bending the truth. I can't shake the feeling that if Ms Kamal is bending the truth a little here, things will explode quite badly. BUT if it turns out that there is a conspiracy to block her flight then I hope Judge Alsup tears the DHS a new one over it. Even if nobody is bending the truth, and it's either a case of mistaken identity when checking against the no-fly list, or there's another system failure, someone will be getting in a lot of troble for interfering with this trial (if only because the trial about this system, and the system failed to pass a witness to the trial)
Big Government has morphed into little government and The State. The government is supposed to do the peoples' business. The State has it's own agenda and factions within the State use legitimate government functions to further their aims. And some are just megalomaniacs. Come the revolution I'm going to be on the front lines. Life's going to be hell when the money stops. I'm old and tired, I wont last long without my modern conveniences anyway.
That niggling feeling that anyone could be lying
You're simply sensing the Matrix all around you.
Unfortunately, nobody can be told what the Matrix is.
Hang on, Dorothy.
Because Kansas...is going bye-bye.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
It doesn't usually quite work like that. The way it usually works is:
(to start at an arbitrary point)
1: The Democrats are in and infurating people.
2: The Republicans get in, and pass laws giving the executive more power. The Democrats get into a tizzy about how unjust they are, so the Republicans hesitate to use them.
3: The Democrats get in, and use the powers granted them by the prior administration.
4: Go to 1.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
She is an avid supporter of UMNO - a RACIST ORGANIZATION which is still practicing APARTHEID in the country that it rules over (Malaysia, in this case).
Citation please?
She is an active player in an organization which supports the global jihadist movement.
Plus even if she is an UMNO member you'd have to show she is "an active player".
Otherwise you could tar all Democrat and Republican members with a similar brush.
Plus the last I checked the US was still friendly with the leader of UMNO.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/10/02/readout-president-s-call-prime-minister-najib-malaysia
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2013/10/11/John-Kerry-US-Secretary-of-State-Najib-Tun-Razak.aspx
Is Najib on the no-fly list too?
It's possible that this is genuine incompetence rather than malice. Mustafa and Kamal are certainly common names in Arabic. Not so sure about Rainan, but I could imagine in those 700,000 names someone does have a similar name.
"Lawsuit dismissed, reason: national security. Next, please."
We have always been at war with Easta^H^H^H^H^HMalaysia.
No left turn unstoned.
There's a Rahinah Ibrahim and a Rahimah Ibrahim (well, there's at least one of each).
Which one are you talking about?
And is CCP Soviet Socialist Republics?
And wasn't Malaysia not a part of that?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I think part of the problem here is that this kind of 'ends justify the means' behavior has it backwards. With the justice system, it really is about 'the means justify the ends'. If there is no due process, or the due process is impeded by one of the parties involved in the court case, how can we believe that the outcome is what it should have been (with some tolerance for error, of course... =P).
FTFS: about 700,000 people on that list.
That's about one in every 10,000 people on this planet.
And with every person on the list likely multiple people that share their name (having a similar name to someone on that list is enough to be affected!), possibly even the same name and date of birth, plus the fact that only a minor fraction of the world even has access to planes for economical reasons, I wouldn't be surprised if this list by now affects about one in every 1,000 airplane passengers that want to fly to the US, or within the US, in one way or another. And it's growing, rapidly.
By far most of these people haven't done anything wrong - save a few they probably have never even been convicted of a crime, in a US court or otherwise. They've just been flagged for primarily political reasons (resentment against the US), and put on that list.
If an individual inevitably learns that his name, or some similar name, is on a no-fly list when he tries to board the plane, how can the government defend the position that it national security prevents it from telling that individual that his name or some similar name is on the no-fly-list upon request from the individual? I think the ACLU should sue the government and demand that the government be forced to answer such requests on a reasonable schedule. But what legal basis could be used for such a demand, exactly?
There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.
I trust you will say hello to him in your high school reading class, perhaps on your way to the reading comprehension class.
Take note that above his reply is the AC stating "Can you point to a ban on firearms in Washington DC? No, you can't because such a thing never existed".
Then you choose to vilify him over which one of the many gun laws used to ban ownership/possession/use of firearms was overturned?
No brain, no pain.
I tthink people need to realize this is just cause and effect. I don't imagine it was n intentional use of the no fly list but more likely a coincidence. But it is still an example of what happens when the arm of the law is too far reaching. Its not as if the skulls is running government from some secret lair its just human beings who barely interact with their individual ideas on a regular basis. The true mistake of the bush government probably came from the influence of wolfowitz on Cheney and then Cheney to bush. I almost feel bad for president bush. But I'm Canadian... We'll do that
...by how bad you think things are (or are not). Until the high income earners start to suffer friom this dictatorial system like the rest of us, we'll still get snarky comments about how "great" the freedoms afforded US citizens is...
My coworker, who was from Pakistan, didn't get interned, but he did get hauled in to show his papers. I think he had a green card at the time; he's a citizen now. But Muslim, so that made him suspicious, even though he's non-political.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
No, and no "thanks for playing", either. There are no clear lines in a dictatorship, it's whatever The Authorities feel like doing, and while you know that some things are definitely forbidden, like criticizing the dictator, you can never trust that anything else you do is safe.
Dictatorships have almost all the bad parts of monarchies*, with newer technology, and the leaders don't even have the excuse that some strange woman lying in a pond handed them a sword or that a Divine Being appointed them, so they have to make sure that the population stays afraid to mess with them. Ever.
By the way, if you want to read an astoundingly good article on Machiavelli, it starts here, at Ex Urbe's blog.
* Most dictatorships don't have hereditary succession, so the dictator is usually somebody who was competent and/or vicious enough to rise to the top, as opposed to being some random idiot who was lucky or unlucky enough to be the kid of the previous king. (North Korea excepted, along with many years of the Roman Empire..) On the other hand, this means that they know they're only in power as long as they suppress or coopt anybody else who's competent and vicious enough to displace them, so they never get to relax unless they can abscond with a lot of cash and move to the South of France.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Are you talking to me or the parent poster who talked about escaping the dictatorship of the CCP and then launched into the Malaysia diatribe without me seeing any sign of a connection?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I would go beyond that, and make willful obstruction of justice by law enforcement and justice officials a capital offense (or life sentence), regardless of what case it was in. This is something that strikes at the very foundation of the system that is supposed to be "justice for all"; in many ways it's more dangerous than outright treason. Furthermore, it's something done by people with full knowledge of what they are doing and why - it's not an "accidental offense" - so I have absolutely zero sympathy for those involved. Make it really, really, really hurt.
How about the guy who wants to give you better instead of less?
(Not that I know who that is, but it's not impossible. "Less" just seems like a lazy facile overarching non-solution.)
So, fly from Malaysia to [coin-toss] Vancouver, Toronto or Mexico ; travel to nearest convenient US border ; cross there (you're a citizen ; no flying involved) ; travel on to Los Angeles (or another city) by whatever method seems least inconvenient.
This sort of trick works once and once only. So unless this was an important case, someone somewhere has fucked what could otherwise have been a useful trick.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"