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US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process
An anonymous reader writes: On August 6, U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga ordered the federal government to "explain why the government places U.S. citizens who haven't been convicted of any violent crimes on its no-fly database." Unsurprisingly, the federal government objected to the order, once more claiming that to divulge their no-fly list criteria would expose state secrets and thus pose a national security threat. When the judge said he would read the material privately, the government insisted that reading the material "would not assist the Court in deciding the pending Motion to Dismiss (PDF) because it is not an appropriate means to test the scope of the assertion of the State Secrets privilege." The federal government has until September 7 to comply with the judge's order unless the judge is swayed by the government's objection.
If somehow we could avoid letting the worst ideas just kinda slide.
There's not a lick of evidence that no-fly has helped anyone, but we need to insist its policies not face even the slightest judicial review. Asshole libertarians tend identify me as an authoritarian because I state the obvious vis a vis their fundamental beliefs, but this kind of deprivation without due process is still completely nuts.
It's time to start disassembling this expensive fraud. Millions of travelers are inconvenienced by these fraudulent necessities that have been installed since the Patriot Act was passed. That Act will go down in American history as the single, most damaging, threat to liberty in this country. Billions spent, law abiding people treated like criminals without due process. It truly makes me ashamed and angry at DC and the retards that reside there.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Yeah, which is why the judge is asking to be allowed to review the material for constitutionality in private.
If a US judge(reminder, appointed for life) wanted to hurt our nation, they'd have better tools at their disposal than leaking some bureaucratic legalese.
To divulge this information would let loose the fact that the list is populated arbitrarily in most cases, and in others using illegal domestic spying practices currently being swept under the rug by the administration and the NSA. More importantly it would further confirm the TSA and most of homeland security as nothing more than security theatre and lemon socialism for defense contractors. Further, it would serve also to undermine more than a decade of highly controversial foreign and domestic policy in the wake of the september 11th attacks.
Another way to approach this retiscence from the government is in terms of employment and consumer confidence, as thats really all a capitalist government is focused on when it legislates. for those who insist it would help to dismantle the department of homeland security, its not that simple or even prudent to do. closing a 60 billion dollar a year facility would instantly land a quarter of a million americans unemployed as well as trigger staff cuts in military agencies and various contractors across the board. the long story short: as capitalism employs outsourcing and offshoring in its advancing race to the bottom, it becomes increasingly incapable of providing gainful employment for anyone and in turn government programs like this must be protected, even if they do very little else but harass the public and chase their tail. the big state secret is that the United States can hardly keep the government open, lags the world in education, and leads the world in incarceration
Good people go to bed earlier.
is one of the many reasons why I think there really is no discernible difference between Republicans and Democrats. Two sides of the same d2. I kinda fooled myself into thinking the Dems would be different after 8 years of W. But we just see more of the same. Same abuse of powers, same sense of entitlement and executive privilege, same (or expanded) levels of invasive surveillance, same police-state mentality.
The federal government has become an insatiable monstrosity of bureaucratic machinery that would have defied even the imagination of Kafka, demanding accountability and transparency from all (achieving such ends at gunpoint or through a wiretap), while offering none itself.
The great insight of the founding fathers was recognizing a need for checks and balances, and creating a theoretical system to prevent excesses of the executive (or the other branches). The problem with this nice idea is that in the real world powerful people tend to curry favor among themselves, where Supreme Court justices go on duck hunting trips with the Vice President and suchlike: the branches of government are just three sides of the same d3.
1. Does the subject wear a turban? If yes, add to list. If no, continue.
2. Can you pronounce the subject's name? If no, add to list, if yes, continue.
3. Has subject slept with your significant other or ex? If yes, add to list, if no, continue.
4. Flip a coin. If heads, add to list, if tails, continue.
5. Do you want the subject on the list? If yes, add to list, if no, arrest subject for loitering and go to lunch.
I'm sad to report that my opinion on the matter(no) doesn't matter nearly as much as a federal judge's, as far as actionability is concerned.
You assume it actually works. There's no evidence it's actually stopped any terrorist attack. Further, even if it did, it's still on dubious legal grounds - the government is effectively harming people by restricting their ability to travel, and is doing so without any accountability. No independent judge, no trial, no legal representation, not even the most basic right to see the evidence against them. It's the type of unaccountable secret legal process you'd expect to see in North Korea - given a bit of a PR makeover and introduced to the US.
Unfortunately, while not false (in the most obvious case, informants have a way of winding up dead if you are too obvious about their existence); your justification leaves two major issues unaddressed:
1. The government is not refusing to divulge the specific reasons and evidence that led to a particular person being added to the list(which quite plausibly might reveal specific informants, bugged computers, etc. and would likely merit an in camera review or something). They are refusing to divulge the general criteria and possible methods by which anyone could end up on the list. It's the difference between "Tell me exactly who ratted out Big Vinnie" and "What constitutes 'Racketeering' for the purposes of the US criminal code". One is a potential operational risk. The other is 'rule of law'.
2. The 'no fly list' is a bullshit twilight category without obvious protective value. Apparently there are people (and lots of them) so dangerous that they cannot be allowed on a passenger aircraft, even with some sort of enhanced screening; but so safe that apparently no other measures need be taken. It's a combination of state harassment(not being able to fly is a pretty big deal if you travel much) and absurd magical thinking. Too dangerous to fly; but safe enough to do basically anything else? Seriously? Why would that category even exist? Hijacking an airplane with a pointy object shouldn't work anymore(if we finished upgrading the doors), and anyone who can get bombs, firearms, or toxins doesn't need a plane to cause trouble.
The refusal to even outline how you fall into such a category, or why such a category exists, is a profound mockery of the notion of rule of law. No, not every specific detail of how every piece of evidence is gathered can be safely revealed; but that isn't the story here.
End every punishment doled out by the government without a trial by jury.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This is all such a joke and epitomizes the cat and mouse game that the executive office likes to play. Any idiot can see that the clear solution is to give all supreme court justices and several federal appeals court justices in each district Q clearances to review any top secret information pertinent to the cases that they are hearing. This would allow for proper judicial review rather than trample on the constitution's system of checks and balances. Further, ALL state senators should be given Q clearances also, so that they can properly perform legislative action. When you consider the number of people working at FBI, CIA, national labs, etc, adding 50 judges and 100 senators doesn't make much difference. If people were serious about democracy, this would have happened years ago.
The erosion of our liberties and freedoms under the Patriot Act have been beyond shameful. We backed that up with blunders like GITMO. I am not sure where it ends, but it has played out as if the playbook was right from an Orwell novel.
It would also be nice if we put more effort into being a likeable country rather than spending so much time, effort, money, and political capital keeping our enemies at bay and out allies paid off. If we would stop meddling in everyone else's affairs we might not have so many people and groups trying to attack us in the first place. It would take decades, as we have meddled for quite a while in quite a lot of places. But long term, it would be nice to have the moral high ground again.
Do American citizens have a constitutional right to fly?
That isn't remotely a relevant or even intelligent qustion. What you should've asked is: Does the Federal Government have the Constitutional authority to prevent - without a trial of their peers - American citizens from travelling freely. The answer is, of course, a no-fucking-brainer.
If so, you're idiots. Show me where he asked for the resignation of everyone appointed by Bush and Cheney.
And tell me that there aren't folks who work for the government who wouldn't like to hurt him.
As a couple of datapoints, 10-12 years ago, in the mainstream press, were two stories, not many months apart: first, Dem. Congressman David Thomas was prevented from flying, because his name was on the no-fly list, and it took *him* two weeks to get it off.
How many folks do *you* know named David Thomas... or is that your name?
And then there was the other case, and that did *not* end well for the TSA... when they tried to keep Sen. Ted Kennedy from flying, claiming his name was on the no-fly list.
Come on, all of you on the right, let's see you posting screams of rage against Bush and Cheney for *pure* political persecution.
mark