Slashdot Mirror
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.
A certain judge will be placed on the no-fly list on Sept 6.
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.
"... 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.""
Actually, that is precisely what letting the judge read the criteria would do.
I suspect that the real problem is that the criteria used for being added to the No-Fly list are overbroad and arbitrary. The secret here is that the No-Fly list is a farce.
An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
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.
When this topic came up a few weeks ago here on Slashdot, I did a bit of research and found out that the "no fly list" would be better named the "no entry list", as the people are not allowed to enter or leave the country on a plane - they can fly within the country if they wish. It is a list of a few hundred citizens and a few thousand foreign nationals not allowed to fly into or out of the country. The Terrorist Watch List, on the other hand, has MILLIONS of people listed, mostly US citizens.
I'm far more concerned about the government watching millions of it's own people, treating them potential terrorists, than I am about them listing a few thousand foreign actors who aren't allowed to enter the US.
She sued, and called her mother as a witness. Her mother was then put on the list and not allowed back in. The US denied doing this, but the airline said that was why she was not allowed to board.
Eventually they discovered that the original reason the daughter was put on the no fly list was that someone interviewing her had checked the wrong box on a form.
She won her law suit, and the US had to remove her from the list. This was after years of having her education interrupted.
Basically, the no fly list is a poorly managed piece of crap that they are ashamed to admit they usually have no idea why anyone is on the list.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
For the safety of the country there are certain things that need to remain secret. Some complain our government doesn't do enough to protect us. Others see the boogeyman behind everything the government does. Criteria for no-fly list? I imagine there is an element of secrecy there and it would largely depend on intelligence generated through a number of sources. Are there mistakes made? Of course. Unfortunately the process is administered by human beings who are flawed vessels at best.
In a republic, the people must be able to hold their representatives accountable and ensure they are working in the country's best interests and obeying the law. Secret policies like the one governing the members of the no-fly list work against people wanting to know what their government is doing and why. It is not a matter of whether we are protected or not. It is a matter of transparency in a government by, of and for the people. That's not to say that the policy governing the no-fly list should be published in the New York Times. But if the government can hide behind the state secrets privilege to bar people from finding out why they are on the list and how they might get off it, they are denying those people their right to redress of grievances.
It is true that some things must be kept secret. But part of the issue here is that in order to be trusted with secrets, you must be that; trusted. Members of the intelligence and national security apparatus have been found lying to Congress, the judiciary and the public on numerous occasions. When they say we must simply trust them that they are doing the right thing, any thinking person should be skeptical. They have blown their credibility and have lost the trust of the people they are supposed to be protecting. That's not a good thing.
It should be noted that in the seminal case that established the state secrets privilege, United States v. Reynolds, the government used the national security argument to hide negligence. In the very first case that they used that argument, they used it to cover something up (lax maintenance that led to the downing of an aircraft). So it has been a dubious privilege from the start. Given their track record since, there is no reason to trust that the government is being honest in their invoking the privilege now. They may indeed be on the up-and-up. But that needs to be independently verified, and that should be the job of the court.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Yeah, which is why the judge is asking to be allowed to review the material for constitutionality in private.
Is there any possible way that a 'No Fly List' could be constitutional?
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 would bet serious money that the No Fly List results from inputs from a variety of different agencies applying different and inconsistent rules, or in some cases maybe no rules at all.
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.
In a sub-basement of the Nebraska Avenue Complex, the headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security, sit a couple of men staring at a computer screen and talking to each other in heavily accented English. The screen fades to white for a fraction of a second as it refreshes, the image changing from a young white woman to a man of Middle Eastern descent - a dentist in Seattle, but these men would never think to look that up. One of the men, brown-haired with an average build, his arms and legs containing a bit of muscle from his time at what he proudly refers to as "Fort Buttfuck, Texas" but his slight gut telling the real story of years spent "analyzing" various persons of interest and inhaling massive lunches purchased on the government's dime turns to his friend, a slightly shorter man from a small town in Oklahoma who is missing one of his front teeth. Unlike his friend, he's purely lean, having spent a good chunk of his taxpayer-funded salary on an expensive gym in Maryland - one that's popular with some of the senators when they come down to Washington to do business.
"Hey Earl," the first man says, "You reckon this guy's a terrorist?" he asks, pronouncing "terrorist" as "turrorist".
"I dunno, Clete, I reckon he might be," the second man replies. "Think we should ask the NSA for some intel?"
Clete thinks for a moment. "Reckon we 'oughta. I'll make the call."
Clete reaches to his left, past a hill of Taco Bell wrappers, and picks up a single throwing dart from a beer can he'd cut in half one day when business had been slower. Just to the the right of the screen (but far enough away that the screen won't be hit, because Earl caught hell from their supervisor after he put a dart through the last screen) with a clear line of sight to Clete's chair, a dartboard hangs from a nail in the wall. A printed-out sign (Comic Sans, of course) above it reads "NSA". An identical dartboard, with an identical sign, hangs on the left of the screen for Earl's use.
With a deep inhale, Clete tenses his arm, letting it go as he exhales. The dart sails across the room and embeds itself in the wall half an inch from the rim of the dartboard. Clete could've sworn he had better aim than this - after five years of experience, he was pretty good at darts - but one look at Mt. Bud (Earl's pet name for the pile of empty beer cans they tossed into a corner for the janitors to clean up. Clete had always reckoned that they were illegals, but they picked up the beer cans well enough.) told him he'd probably had one or two too many. "Fuckin' shit!" Clete cried in anger. Earl was beating him by 10 points now, which meant Clete would be paying for the drinks after work. "Yeah Earl, reckon he's a turrorist."
Earl dutifully pulls out a small remote control, one that has only two buttons - the red button and the green button. Green means go, red means No-Fly list. He presses the red button, and a large red circle with a cross through it, the standard "NO" sign, appears over the face on the screen. There's a whirring from the back of the room as the computer prints out the paperwork to add the dentist from Seattle, who had never had any terrorist affiliations in his life, to the No-Fly list, complete with an automated version of Clete's hastily-scrawled signature at the bottom, with Earl's underneath as a witness. The image on screen changes to another photo, this one of a teenager. Earl takes a long pull from his beer. He's got this one.
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.
It's long past time that federal judges start jailing these bureaucrats for contempt for not answering simple questions about the no-fly list.
yes. sort of.
first, there is the right to freely travel inside your country.
second, there is the implied right to earn an income. today, its getting to the point where travel via air is required by many jobs.
third, there is nothing in the C to allow denying you the right to travel.
this has never been about C stuff; but that does not stop the 'culture of fear' politicians who have found a new friend in keeping people under their control.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Sort of, yes.
We really don't want to see any pics of any loose lips, thank you very much!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
It should be noted that in the seminal case that established the state secrets privilege, United States v. Reynolds, the government used the national security argument to hide negligence.
That original claim to privilege was retested in the early 2000s once those "secret" documents had been declassified and *still* the court found that the government had *not* abused its state secrets privilege. It may be your opinion that the government tried to hide negligence, but that's not the accepted opinion and not the one reached by many trained scholars (judges, lawyers) actually practicing in the field on a daily basis. So perhaps you should remove the tin foil hat covering your eyes every once in a while and consider that there may be more to some things than you might first think.
Now, that said, I'm no big government promoter. Far from it. You can read some of my prior comments for examples. What I don't want are for people to discredit the entire concept of major government reform by making such broad statements without addressing the (potentially legitimate) counter arguments. Taken in context, those original claims to state secret privileges seem relevant to me in this particular case.
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.
"The secret here is that the No-Fly list is a farce."
It is worse than a farce, as it has become a weapon to illegally coerce cooperation among certain ethnic and religious groups. Turn state's evidence, or you might end up on the list and not be able to ever visit your family member's again. How can we as a "freedom loving American's" tolerate any citizen being strong-armed like this?! Being inaccurate at times would be forgiven by most (especially if there was a plausible challenge and review path), but to be used as it is just plain awful and illegal.
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.
I'm pretty sure that regardless of what the court or this judge feels, the government will do whatever the heck it wants. And in the end, how would anyone force the US government to comply with the court order?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It should be noted that in the seminal case that established the state secrets privilege, United States v. Reynolds, the government used the national security argument to hide negligence.
That original claim to privilege was retested in the early 2000s once those "secret" documents had been declassified and *still* the court found that the government had *not* abused its state secrets privilege. It may be your opinion that the government tried to hide negligence, but that's not the accepted opinion and not the one reached by many trained scholars (judges, lawyers) actually practicing in the field on a daily basis. So perhaps you should remove the tin foil hat covering your eyes every once in a while and consider that there may be more to some things than you might first think.
Now, that said, I'm no big government promoter. Far from it. You can read some of my prior comments for examples. What I don't want are for people to discredit the entire concept of major government reform by making such broad statements without addressing the (potentially legitimate) counter arguments. Taken in context, those original claims to state secret privileges seem relevant to me in this particular case.
From Wikipedia: "The radio program This American Life reported in 2009, that, contrary to claims made in the case, the accident report contained no information on the secret equipment on the plane except to note that secret equipment was present, a fact which had been reported in the press at the time. The program interviewed the daughter of one of the crash victims who described the government's claims in the case as fraudulent."
The court may have found that the government did not abuse its privilege, but I do not agree. Courts have also ruled that people who suspect they are being spied upon have no standing to find out, since the spying is classified and they can't know if they are or not. Whatever the material of my hat, court rulings do not guarantee fairness, good judgement or good policy.
The defense, as I understand it, was that the accident report was privileged information and therefore not subject to disclosure under Rule 34 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. However, the cause of the plane crash was determined to be a fire in the engine. What does a fire in the engine have to do with secret surveillance equipment on the plane? Why would an engine fire be privileged? How would its disclosure impact national security?
I know that the families of the airmen received a settlement, so they didn't go away with nothing. But the precedent was set and it really looks to me like the government used a supposed threat to national security to avoid accountability. YMMV
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
The Federal government doesn't have the constitutional authority to prevent people from getting high. That's why why it took a constitutional amendment to enact alcohol prohibition. Yet, they do it now through very loose interpretations of the Commerce Clause, and the empowerment of regulatory agencies. I don't think they'll have any problem finding constitutional loopholes in a highly regulated industry, such as the transportation industry, because it operates across state lines, (not to mention internationally).
It's not that I approve of this sort of thing. Just pointing out how they get away with it.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Whether or not you agree with the initial finding of United States v. Reynolds, do you not remember this incident where blatant clerical error added someone to the no-fly list and it was denied up and down. When asked repeatedly why Rahinah Ibrahim was on a no fly list, the resounding answer was "its classified" when in actuality it was do to human error.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Are there mistakes made? Of course. Unfortunately the process is administered by human beings who are flawed vessels at best.
Which is exactly why we have that dusty old Constitution thingy, an artifact the Security State not just ignores but openly flouts.
There. FTFY.
You may think I'm being a grammar nazi here, but words actually have meanings and the word you used gave your statement the exact opposite meaning, judging from the context.
Flaunt (v): display (something) ostentatiously, especially in order to provoke envy or admiration or to show defiance.
Flout (v): openly disregard (a rule, law or convention).
So. You can take this as an attack on you or you can use this information to enhance your communication skills. Or both. Either way, carry on and have a nice day!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Right, so it's not just a secret, it's a secret why is it's secret. It's becoming more clear all the time that there's nothing behind their national security stonewall except embarrassment of certain officials still in office.