Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.)).
Anyone else getting really tired of the US Gov. in general? Wah wah at least it didn't happen to me... right?
Yes, but I'm even more afraid of the alternatives. As long as the people crying the loudest for its overthrow and/or dismantlement are the last people I want running things, I'm pretty much sticking with it.
I wonder if this is what it feels like to be an Egyptian. </bitterness>
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
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.
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/
FUCK YOU.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
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.
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