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US No-Fly List Uses 'Predictive Judgement' Instead of Hard Evidence
HughPickens.com writes: The Guardian reports that in a little-noticed filing before an Oregon federal judge, the US Justice Department and the FBI conceded that stopping U.S. and other citizens from traveling on airplanes is a matter of "predictive assessments about potential threats." "By its very nature, identifying individuals who 'may be a threat to civil aviation or national security' is a predictive judgment intended to prevent future acts of terrorism in an uncertain context," Justice Department officials Benjamin C Mizer and Anthony J Coppolino told the court. It is believed to be the government's most direct acknowledgment to date that people are not allowed to fly because of what the government believes they might do and not what they have already done. The ACLU has asked Judge Anna Brown to conduct her own review of the error rate in the government's predictions modeling – a process the ACLU likens to the "pre-crime" of Philip K Dick's science fiction. "It has been nearly five years since plaintiffs on the no-fly list filed this case seeking a fair process by which to clear their names and regain a right that most other Americans take for granted," say ACLU lawyers.
The Obama administration is seeking to block the release of further information about how the predictions are made, as damaging to national security. "If the Government were required to provide full notice of its reasons for placing an individual on the No Fly List and to turn over all evidence (both incriminating and exculpatory) supporting the No Fly determination, the No Fly redress process would place highly sensitive national security information directly in the hands of terrorist organizations and other adversaries," says the assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, Michael Steinbach.
The Obama administration is seeking to block the release of further information about how the predictions are made, as damaging to national security. "If the Government were required to provide full notice of its reasons for placing an individual on the No Fly List and to turn over all evidence (both incriminating and exculpatory) supporting the No Fly determination, the No Fly redress process would place highly sensitive national security information directly in the hands of terrorist organizations and other adversaries," says the assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, Michael Steinbach.
Tell me Mr Anderson, what good is a phone call if you can't speak?
Sure, feel free to walk to whereever you want to go.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
for racial /religious profiling
This is proof that the objective of law is NOT justice, because justice requires absolute truth, not merely speculation. So if the objective isn't justice, what could it possibly be? Take a wild guess.
"Land of the free", indeed... I'm quite amazed how you Americans put up with all that.
Secret Laws and Rules do not create national security, they are the threat to national security. The problem is, without a clear set of rules, it's a law that is open to abuse towards whomever those who are in charge don't like. Secret laws & courts are what shows you that instead of caring about protecting it's citizen, the government is using it to further their own ends.
We can NOT have freedom when we have secret laws & courts.
Be seeing you...
"Predictive judgment" is a somewhat technical-sounding name for "giving it our best guess based on all kinds of stuff we pretend to understand".
Does it work? Absolutely- 30% of the time it works every time!
They'd almost be better off just rolling some dice and making decisions based on the score.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
In PKD's work the government had several highly trained psychics to predict crime.
In our "reality", the TSA just makes shit up.
"The Obama administration is seeking to block the release of further information about how the predictions are made, as damaging to national security."
Yeah, but it's no big deal that the secretary of state was using her own private email server to store top secret and confidential information.
I wish Obama would have turned out merely as bad as I thought he would be 7 years ago - he's so far exceeded my expectations.
Do you have ESP?
The TSA is all just a dog and pony show, has never stopped an attack, and never will stop an attack. It just gives sheep a false sense of security.
They have hard statistical evidence that most likely terrorists are muslims. But because all the terrorist sympathisers and appeasers will start calling islamaphobia (like they did over the FBI most wanted list) they want to keep this secret.
In other news, during criminal procedures the prosecutor will no longer be obligated to present evidence the defendant is guilty of a crime before incarcerating them.
"If the Government were required to provide full notice of its reasons for placing an individual in prison and to turn over all evidence (both incriminating and exculpatory) supporting the incarceration determination, the incarceration process would place highly sensitive criminal justice information directly in the hands of criminals and other adversaries, like the American people," said some fuckstick.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
If <something-we-dont-want> were to happen then <something-that-no-right-thinking-individual-should-want< would happen.
Nice packaging.
Sure, why should your decisions which affects others' lives be held up for scrutiny ?
Requiem for the American Dream
Where's my minority report?
That US government statement reads more like this "The government of the United States of America, declares all it's citizens terrorists and they have no right to know how they are being judged by the government of the United States of America prior to the administrative branch of the government of United States of America applying penalties and curtailing their rights". You people are in deep trouble.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Cool! Pre-crime
So let me get this straight these people are so dangerous that they can't fly yet aren't dangerous enough to be brought in for questioning, gotten off the streets for the safety of the general public, and are likely not under direct surveillance? I am a bit confused here.
And before someone mods this troll that was sarcasm. I also happen to believe that if the administration were to reveal their "State Secrets" it would be something like the emperor has no cloths.
Time to offend someone
"The Obama administration is seeking to block the release of further information about how the predictions are made, as damaging to national security"
"The Obama administration is seeking to block the release of further information about how the predictions are made, as they are pretty damn dumb and would embarrass the administration".
We can NOT have freedom when we have secret laws & courts.
We cannot have freedom when we have any laws at all.
Any law whatsoever restricts individual freedom. You are no longer free to do whatever you want, whenever you feel like it.
No one anywhere is actually completely free. That's probably a real good thing.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
whilst others may quote george orwell 1984, philip k dick, V for Vendetta, minority report and so on, i'm reminded of the more recent film captain america winter soldier, in which a swiss nazi/hydra scientist, who was permitted to work in the US after the 2nd world war, creates an "algorithm" that can read people's online digital fingerprint, predicts whether they are likely to be a threat (to hydra's "new world order"), and the results are used to murder them... *before* they can act.
the justifications for such action - delivered by the character played by robert redford - sound so completely sane and rational that it's genuinely hard - rationally - to come up with a counter-argument. questions are asked such as "what if we could stop terrorists before they act?" and to be absolutely honest, the responses by the actors were really not that convincing, as they sounded lame in their "emotive" and "moral conscience" justification.
and that's really illustrative of what we're seeing here. these films merely reflect to us what's *actually* going on. these films are pointing out to us that there are *genuinely* people out there who can, with no moral conscience whatsoever and with a blatant disregard for the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, use purely rational logic to justify the removal of freedom and even of life itself.
the problem is, i feel, that the founding fathers had just been through a war that tore what is now known as the U.S. apart: the lesson was burned into their minds, and it brought together people with good conscience to make sensible and far-sighted committments, in the form of "The Constitution".
by contrast, i cannot honestly say that i can even guess at what truly drives the current power-hungry people who make decisions like the ones that they're making right now. we have people like bruce schneier "calling out" their "security theatrics", but that's just a symptom, not the underlying motivation. we see glimpses that something terribly strange is going on - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - but it's sufficiently orwellian that even i have a hard time comprehending the implications.
so help me out here: someone please help me to understand why there are people in the world's leading nation - the one that all others look up to - who would blatantly disregard the principles on which the U.S. Constitution is founded.
So are US citizens regarded as a terrorist organization or just "Other Adversaries" now? Silly me, I thought we were the bosses of the government. Been reading that Constitution too much. It'll warp your brain.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
... requires some background checks (I know it does "here", but I'm quite sure the same applies to the US, who forced this upon "us"). Instead of putting people on a no-fly list, the alternative would be to require everyone who wants to fly through a similar clearance.
The really bad thing about the no-fly list is that it is basically public knowledge who is on that list. With the alternative, the permission to fly would be negotiated only between the individual an the responsible government agency(ies), with even the airline just getting to see the permission (someone without permission wouldn't book a ticket, so it wouldn't be obvious who is did fail the test).
The perfect side-effect would be that everyone who wants to fly would be directly impacted by the procedure. The no-fly list would no longer be a thing of "doesn't affect me anyway".
For augmented effect, push to require the same checks (regularly!) for a normal driver's license.
This national security excuse is really starting to get old... How can one seriously believe he or she is being told the truth when they can conveniently use the national security card for any questions they do not want to answer.
In actual War Time, a la, WWII, restrictions were accepted because the populace understood the threats.
In Iraq, Afghanistan, et all, there is no actual War Time and there is no actual (or unacceptable) threat.
There is no need for this type of action or restriction.
After all, POTUS Obama said the war was over, we won, and the world is a safer place now.
An airline pilot on the first flying day after 9/11 instructed the passengers to throw things at a terrorist if there was an incident. (That is, for the passengers to incapacitate any and all terrorist on a flight. And passengers have taken this type of action ever since.)
This is all Bovine Scat.
The Federal Government under POTUS Obama is terribly and fundamentally scared of the American people/Freedom and is using the Force/farce of the USA Federal Government to reign and rule over us.
Who needs actual observations and facts when a computer model output or assessment is so much cleaner?
Internationally most countries deny visas all the time for reasons ranging from "because" to "you said something that hurt my feelings" to "you once talked to a guy I don't like".
So the US denying entry visas on grounds similar to what other countries all over the world... including England, France, Japan, Switzerland etc deny visas on... that's fine. No nation really has any grounds to criticize the US for its entry policies since they're generally more permissive than anyone else.
As to denying citizens the right to use the air network without some sort of "probable cause"... that's probably unjustifiable. What I would be fine with is putting said person on a "frisk" list. That is... when they book a flight, the TSA is notified that X person on Y flight at Z time but be subjected to security procedures A, B, and C. And reasons for being on that list could be "because", "reasons", "mean tweets", "some guy I know said you some thing about you"... etc.
Maybe even let them know that that is going to happen so they know they have to arrive early. They go to a room somewhere... two gentlemen wearing blue gloves ask them about a girl... will smith pulls out a little silver dildo/flashlight, maybe an Australian doing a voice impression of Carl Sagan talks about multiple identities... and then you carry on with your flight business as usual.
Its the 21st century and crazy people like to blow up americans randomly for the lolz... a certain level of scrutiny is appropriate.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
In the future, could you preface your statements with the fact that you are an ignorant clod, so as to warn people in advance?
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
We cannot have freedom when we have any laws at all.
Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want. Never has been. That is anarchy which is not the same thing. Freedom is FAR more complicated than the absence of laws. Freedom is not just absence of restrictions on you but also absence of things being done TO you. A complete absence of laws for you necessarily means a loss of freedom for me because there is nothing restraining you (or me) from removing other people's freedom. Societies cannot exist without rules, both formal and informal and yet freedom under reasonable definitions of the term still exists.
If there is no law against slavery is the slave-owner free? The slave certainly isn't. But with laws against slavery we can fairly describe both people as free so the absolutist definition of freedom only existing when there are no laws simply makes no sense.
This is pretty much the nature of the beast here. After all, they aren't going to be able to list 'a history of suicide bombing' as a reason for someone to be on the list. And if they had a lot of hard evidence the person would be in jail not trying to buy airline tickets. I'm not supporting the list or the decisions behind which person is on it, just saying this situation is pretty much what you would expect given this type of list.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Has elaborate eastern-style headgear? Y/N
Looks african/middle eastern? Y/N
Looks fanatical? Y/N
Shake Magic 8-Ball (Result): _________________________
That's pretty much it. There's no process or real criteria here. And anyone telling you differently is full of shit. Including President OhBlahBlah.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
but not fine with the "we make no mistakes so you can never be off the list" policy. All that is needed is a review process to remove people from the list.
"Predictive judgement" = "pre-judgement" = prejudice.
It's literally prejudice, with a slightly altered name.
Terrorist organizations like the EFF and ACLU, and other adversaries like the People of the United States and its courts.
It's long past time that we undid the ridiculous excesses of the "war on terror."
These programs are clearly not conducive to the long term maintenance of a free, open, and democratic society. Internal security programs like this are highly susceptible to abuse; but more importantly, look at how ineffective this and other abusive programs have proved in the past 14 years. All of the worst ones have not proved to have ANY significant impact on terrorist or other attacks.
We can NOT have freedom when we have secret laws & courts.
To make matters worse, ignorantia juris non excusat (ignorance of the law does not excuse) is a fundamental legal principle in this country. Coupled with secret laws, no one can claim with certainty that they are a law-abiding citizen. That's probably what's driving the total surveillance state - we're all criminals that just haven't realized it yet.
Politicians have found themselves on the no-fly list, witness the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, as a target of retaliation.
Actually, no he wasn't. There was a "T Kennedy" on the list but Ted's name was actually Edward Moore Kennedy - not even a silent "T" in there. Unless you count his nickname. By that time you can just make up names to be on the list if you don't want someone to fly.
And that's before we get to people getting past the name issue by -gasp- using an alias. Like some terrorist suspect once using the alias "T Kennedy", which is how that name got on the list.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Except in the case where the police violate the 4th amendment.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Some freedoms are spelled out in the various constitutions of various countries.
And when secret laws and courts pretend those freedoms don't exist, or are optional, then you have a very serious problem.
And these secret laws are doing precisely that ... no right to know how or why you're on a no-fly list, no redress, no due process other than "someone somewhere made an unsubstantiated allegation".
Nobody is talking about being completely free. What they're talking about is maintaining the freedoms enshrined in law which are being violated because a process of "because we said so" is in place.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Apparently three people floating in a hot tub intuit that you could be guilty of 'precrime' and you're on the list.
The use of "predictive judgment" is debatable to say the least but revealing the reasons would make the system even less useful. It would be like telling the terrorists how to defeat the system.
The have hard statistical evidence that most likely terrorists are white Christians, but that would jeopardize their funding.
The no-fly list targeted Ted Kennedy and Dave Nelson, which is not consisted with either the terrorist or the Muslim portions of the theory.
Last year (?) a teenager was able to get over the perimeter fence and get on a plane. Later, they announced that they did not have the money to properly secure the fence. Depite this, exactly zero planes have been subject to terrorist attacks in the USA.
What do we infer from this? The risk from terrorists trying to blow up planes in the USA is indistinguishable from zero. I can't be the only person to realize this.
The administration must realize this, yet, they persist with the ridiculous rules about flying. Clearly, the searches, the no-fly-list, etc. have no connection to terrorism. There is some other reason for their existence.
Reasons for the searches, no-fly-list etc.? Money? Control? Something else?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Then freedom is not possible to ever happen. Some peopel want to do things to others, and consider it a restriction of their freedoms to do those things to others.
If you take an absurdly absolutist definition of freedom (no restrictions on me ever) then yes, it isn't possible for a population >1. I don't really think that is a useful discussion however.
Freedom in more practical terms is a relative state within a society. It is minimizing the restrictions on behavior rather than eliminating them altogether. It also provide reasonable protections against the harmful actions of others. It's sort of akin to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. You cannot simultaneously have both absolute freedom of action AND absolute freedom from the actions of others in a society. You can only have both up to a certain point. If they aren't balanced then you end up in a dictatorship or anarchy.
What they're talking about is maintaining the freedoms enshrined in law which are being violated because a process of "because we said so" is in place.
Just responding to the OP - and it seems he was saying that. You can disagree, and I'm not arguing for anarchy, or disring that there are no laws, nor for the concept of not knowing about the existence of a law until jack-booted thugs haul me off in the middle of the night.
Nosiree - just responding to:
We can NOT have freedom when we have secret laws & courts.
We can not have freedom even if there is not one "secret" law or court either. It's not a call for anarchy, just a rather valid observation.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
"They guessed." And if the guesser was in a particularly foul mood that day...
It's John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness. Even though it was blocked by congress it was quietly renamed. The entire Air Screening program is unconstitutional, but the judges just don't have the balls to rule that way in court.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
It doesn't matter how fast your code runs, or how little memory it uses, if it doesn't work.
I have no problems with clever heuristics which, on average, make something work better even if it sometimes misses and results in a slower search. But when missing causes it to return an incorrect result, then that's a bug and your heuristic is either stupid, or else you're stupid for not handling the backup case.
Predictive Judgement is totally cool, as long as it doesn't actually result in the government pointing a gun at someone's face and saying that an innocent person shouldn't have the same freedoms as everyone else. If the government targets arbitrary innocent people, then it's not really protecting us from terrorists, is it? Because it is one of the terrorists.
If you can't eliminate false positives, then get rid of the no-fly list. It's not like the no-fly list is important, is it?
I think this statement is what people ought to be debating. You know it's not a slam-dunk, right? Or at least not in America. Go read the 4th and 5th Amendments again, and just compare the idea behind those things, to what you just said. It doesn't quite fit, does it?
Either America has changed its mind about some important things, or fucking with millions of people isn't worth saving a few hundred lives. Now, if we've changed our minds, fine (*) but then let's say it and repeal that ridiculous Bill of Rights, because that fuckin' thing is constantly getting in the way, and much more than some arbitrary TSA rule.
(*) Well, no, not really, but we can agree to disagree on that. Might I suggest the police-staters move to another, safer country and write a more appropriate constitution for their outlook?
The government thinks it's OK to have Terrorists running around loose, so long as they don't set foot on an airplane. How about you arrest them to keep us safe instead of making them drive?
You might want to widen that up a bit, we should undo all "war on [blank]" mindsets unless, I don't know, WE'RE ACTUALLY AT WAR. It seems every generation has a new "war on" something that is used as an excuse to ignore basic freedoms. The "war on the communists" allowed the government to spy on and "disrupt" anyone who spoke out about government waste and misbehavior. The "war on drugs" gave the government unprecedented powers to search people walking down the street, kill people without justification and track money. The "war on terrorism" gave them the added abilities to detain people, blow people up without justification and restrict travel. I half expect the next "war on" to include tracking chips injected into every persons rear, since the ability to travel around without the government knowing exactly where we are and where we have been is practically the only right still even remotely on the table.
The problem is that you're doing it wrong.
All of the measures deployed are pretty useless from a CT ops viewpoint, IMHO.
Want to stop this kind of thing?
Tell everyone on the plane to subdue anyone with a blanket or coat, and realize your primary vulnerability is your cargo, which is still unsafe.
Everyone I know with CT ops experience can easily defeat all of these counter-measures. And the major risk comes from the countries you call our allies.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'm sure Israel is attached to all this somehow. After all, how else could they keep up with all the potential peace activists and prevent them from flying?
Oh come on - " predictive judgment"? They do that when they don't let you on with a gun, a knife, or a bomb in your underwear. They pre-judge you're going to do something harmful based on what you are carrying. There's nothing wrong with "predictive judgement" - you walk down the street towards my son's school with an assault rifle, I'm going to judge what your intentions are. The better question is if the judgement is made reasonably or not based on the information to go off of. I'll grant you the government can be nuts, but the title of "predictive judgment" is simply used to gain inflamed readers without noting that there's nothing wrong with predictive judgment and it's used all of the time and generally we're ok with it (we just don't use that term).
There are two very different lists which are both commonly referred to as a "No Fly" list, and they are very different. The article doesn't make it clear that the author knows the the difference, much less make it explicit which list the case is about.
There are tens of thousands of people on the "no fly" list which is really a "no border crossing" list. These people aren't allowd to fly into the United States and federal authorities will be notified if they try to leave the country. Personally, I'm okay with not inviting in people who publicly proclaim the ir intent to harm us, chanting "death to America". Because some random guy from Syria has no right to enter the US, I don't mind disinviting the ones who proclaim their desire to kill Americans.
There is another list of a few hundred people who aren't allowed to fly WITHIN the US. THAT raises much more interesting questions. That could easily be abused. However, it seems reasonable that in a population of 320 million, there would be a few hundred who truly are dangerous, for whom there is enough evidence that _I_ wouldn't want to be on a plane with them. As long as there are only a few hundred people on that list, that indicates officials are being careful about who they add to the list. While there are due process questlns, the practical, pragmatic effect seems to be that only the shadiest of shady characters have been put on the actual "not allowed to fly within the US" list. So far, anyway.
"In order to save our constitutional freedoms, we had to destroy them."
"Fuck the Constitution and fuck the very idea of justice".
Because withholding "evidence" in the name of national security has NEVER held up in any court of Law. Injustice to one is injustice to all. Will you wait until it happens to you before you say something? Because when it does happen to you, it's gonna be too late to complain. The time is NOW.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
So, hang on a minute. The reasons and evidence are obviously not strong enough to land the "not flying" individual in court. Otherwise they'd be brought to justice, not just "watched".
So, are the reasons and evidence "highly sensitive national security information?"
Government conspires; hence, they classify.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Or, if you can't fly directly into the USA, fly into Canada and rent a car.
I don't read AC A human right
"You can't fly on the plane....because."
"Because why?"
"I won't tell you why."
What a bunch of bullshit.
> if they are so dangerous why haven't they been arrested.
Which "they", which list? And what makes you think they've never been arrested?
The VAST majority of the people on the big list aren't in the US, and aren't worth tracking down and arresting them in whatever country they're in. When some guy in Iran says he wants to kill Americans, it's much more reasonable to add him to the "not welcome" list than to invade Iran and get him.
Of the ones in the US, many WILL be detained if they show up at an airport and show ID, letting authorities know where they are.
There may be a few who are more interesting, for which the proper response isn't entirely clear. Especially for the few US citizens, what it the appropriate response when someone says they want to blow up a plane? You can't put them in prison for life - wanting to blow up a plane isn't even illegal in the US. However, I don't want that guy on the plane with me. It's truly a difficult situation.
There is an interesting proposal for this problem, and the related quandry of handling terrorism suspects who probably have knowledge of upcoming attacks, sleeper cells, communications channels used by terrorists, etc. Many people would say that getting information from Osama bin Laden would have been important enough that if required, it would have been okay to punch HIM in the gut. Or pour water on his face. On the other hand, as a POLICY matter, you don't want waterboarding to be used on a regular basis. How's this for a weird idea. Each year, the NSA can choose five people who shouldn't be flying, and can take one person to Guantanamo. I don't want to know what they do with that one person in Guantanamo, but they better choose carefully because they only get ONE person. Better make sure you take the one guy who really needs to be at Guantanamo. That's one idea.
- James Clapper
Which "they", which list?
The VAST majority of the people on the big list aren't in the US, and aren't worth tracking down and arresting them in whatever country they're in. When some guy in Iran says he wants to kill Americans, it's much more reasonable to add him to the "not welcome" list than to invade Iran and get him.
Of the ones in the US, many WILL be detained if they show up at an airport and show ID, letting authorities know where they are.
There may be a few who are more interesting, for which the proper response isn't entirely clear. Especially for the few US citizens, what it the appropriate response when someone keeps saying they want to blow up a plane? You can't put them in prison for life - wanting to blow up a plane isn't even illegal in the US. However, I don't want that guy on the plane with me. It's truly a difficult situation.
I think it would be great if people could just shut down federal agencies because they can be predictively judged to continue being shady balls of fail in the future. Sorry FBI and DEA, we the people predict you will gracefully fail to notice any banksters laundering drug money again in 2016 and 2017 so your appropriations have been pulled. Later!
--hongpong.com
The right of the Citizen to travel shall not be impinged.
NOTE: Many newer constitutions specifically mention this right.
Thoreau, a real visionary, saw it as a dangerous trend in the 1800s. We seeing it much further along its path so the job of projection should be pretty simple now. Give it a try. If you've got half a brain and a little bit of history and facts, give it a try; it's not that hard.
How far of a leap is it from predictive travel to predictive life and death? Not much. We are almost there.
We -- the technologically literate -- are THE implementers of the future; the totalitarians couldn't do shit without us -- hell, even their cars, phones, TVs, Air Force Ones, and washing machines are now TOTALLY at our mercy. And what are we doing with that power? On the whole, assisting them willingly, often eagerly, in their worship of Death.
And what is our excuse? The same excuse, really, the operators of the ovens at Treblinka gave.
I'm fairly certain GP means your second, smaller, "not allowed to fly at all" list. It is pretty obvious with the way you described it and the way they also described it.
How about we take none to Guantanamo and just arrest and jail guilty people lawfully? How about we just accept that shit is going to happen and stop being afraid? I think that takes the whole terror point out of terrorism. It is not that simple but, really, I do not really like the whole Guantanamo idea one bit. We're better than that - or we should be.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
"the world's leading nation - the one that all others look up to"
I can barely stop myself from laughing - are you new on the internet, or something?
The USA long stopped being the "exceptional country", the beacon on the hill that it has pretended to be for so long.
I'm over 50, and I haven't ONCE looked up to the USA as a role model on any kind. You guys seem to do everything societal as badly as is possible without it falling apart completely, and then often have shit fall apart completely anyway.
The USA - no thank you, you can keep your neo-fascist oligarchy to yourself, thanks, mate !!!!
Prisons, healthcare, justice, politics, warfare, education ... they all suck so badly.
To be fair, as a typical american (and that's deliberately with a lowercase "a") you likely haven't ventured beyond your shores and no little of which you speak other than what's been filtered, massaged and constructed by your local media. So it's perhaps not entirely your fault that you're ignorant of what "we" all actually think of you.
If only it were that easy. Rashid did 10 years in federal prison for conspiracy to hijack a plane. When he got out, Rashid spent a few years in the middle east before coming back to the US and leading "death to America" rallys and hanging out with Richard Reid. Do you want your family on a plane with Rashid?
Since Rashid isn't a US citizen, it's questionable what Consititutional rights he has in the US - by law we should simply kick him out, and the local sheriff would to to, but the feds have been told not to deport people without more recent felony convictions.
>> Since Rashid isn't a US citizen, it's questionable what
>> Consititutional rights he has in the US
> It's not questionable at all actually. He has all the rights granted by his humanity. Constitutional rights apply to everyone
You're saying foreign visitors have exactly the same rights granted to citizens by the US Constitution? Such as the right to vote, for example. So in your understanding, anyone visiting here from another country is entitled to vote in our elections? Well hello, Mr. Obama.
The Supreme Court disagrees with you again, Mr. President, and affirmed so as recently as 2003 (Demore v Kim). Citizenship does have meaning - if you're a citizen of France, you have certain rights (and responsibilities) in France, if you're a US citizen, you have certain rights and responsibilities in the US. (See ex the draft - a responsibility to put your life on the line for your country - YOUR country).
Another obvious example is that visitors can be tossed out of the country. Citizens cannot. Much like the difference between a roommate who lives with you (and is responsible for half the bills) vs a visitor in your home - who doesn't have to pay the bills, and doesn't have the right to mess around with your thermostat.
On the other hand, they've also held that _some_ natural rights do apply to visitors, often citing the 14th amendment's equal protection clause. As the founders said, all people are endowed BY THEIR CREATOR wit certain inalienable rights. Those are human rights, as you said. Then, separately, there are the rights of citizens of each state and of the United States.
Sometimes, drawing the lines can be a bit tricky.
The only right that the US Constitution grants to specifically to citizens is the right to hold elected office. There is no Federal "right to vote" as there are no Federal Elections. Voting is a State issue. The 14th Amendment specifically allows for States to limit the right to vote but requires that the population used to calculate representation be reduced as well. The 15th Amendment says that a State cannot deny voting rights due to "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" and the 19th extends that protection to women, while the 26th extends that protection to all ages 18 and above.
Neither Habeus Corpus nor any of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are limited to citizens.
Even Demore v. Kim acknowledges that "the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process in deportation proceedings"
Thus, it seems that the only right that citizens have that is not granted to others is the right of entry. Once someone is under the jurisdiction of the US they have constitutional rights.
Aside: I don't recall Obama advocating for voting rights for non-citizens, has he done so?
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JimFive
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
At least for the Vegas guy, the answer is that we're not actually all that worried about small planes. If it's not at least the size of a commuter jet, for example, they're actually built so lightly that you could kill more people with a standard car at a farmer's market.
If you have a specific target it might, a big might, enable you to hit it better.
But your 'average' Cessna is actually lighter than a car. There have been cases where they hit things like the 2nd floor of a bank. The only difference is the floor, the damage/mess was actually less than if a car had hit the first floor.
I don't read AC A human right
You mentioned the 15th amendment, which says "THE RIGHT OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES TO VOTE shall not be denied
or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
The 19th repeats the fact "TTHE RIGHT OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES TO VOTE shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."
You also mentioned the 26th amendment, which similarly refers explicitly to "the right of citizens of the United States ... to vote". The full text of is:
The RIGHT OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES, who are eighteen years of age or older, TO VOTE shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
So there are two parts to that. A) Federal citizens have the right to vote and B) States shall not deny that right based on gender, age, race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
> > There is no Federal "right to vote"
The plain text of the 15th, 19th, and 26th amendments all clearly state there is. They all say "THE right of citizens to vote". They then forbid the states from infringing on that right, whether that infringement be based on age, gender, race, etc. Much like the right of free speech can be curtailed by laws regarding defamation, the Constitution does allow states to regulate voting based on felony convictions and the like. It's very clear, though, it states three times, that there is a right of US citizens to vote. Then it puts limits on the states as to how they may and may not regulate the exercise of that right.
> Aside: I don't recall Obama advocating for voting rights for non-citizens, has he done so?
His administration is currently doing so, with one example being a current case before the Supreme Court. This is but one example, but I'll give you info about this example to start.
After his administration began issuing social security numbers to illegal immigrants, states had no effective method of checking voter registrations regarding citizenship, and studies indicate that roughly 6.6% of illegals vote. Some states, therefore, first asked the Obama administration to make the citizenship field of the federal SSN database available so they could cross-check and find likely invalid voters, registrations that should be double-checked because they are listed as non-citizens. The Obama administration refused to make the data available to states. The states then passed laws to use something other than SSN to as a citizenship check (since not only non-citizens, but also illegals, have SSNs now, just confirming an SSN exists becomes worthless.) The Obama administration interceded, and is now arguing that states may not request any form of proof of citizenship.
Knowing that a significant number of non-citizens vote (mostly for Democrats), there is but one reason to allow state voter registration systems to query the validity of an SSN but disallow the result to show the citizenship field - that is to deny the states the ability to follow the Constitution and protect the "right of citizens to vote". The illegal votes of non-citizens counterbalance the legitimate votes of citizens, and that's the only reason for the Obama administration to insist on hiding the citizenship field from the states.
I accidentally wrote that approximately 6.6% of illegal immigrants vote. That's not quite correct. Studies indicate that about 6.6% of NON-CITIZENS vote. The word "illegal" shouldn't be in that sentence.
So there are two parts to that. A) Federal citizens have the right to vote
Unless denied that right by the state or federal government. Is it a right if it can be abridged by law?
and B) States shall not deny that right based on gender, age, race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Can the government, Federal or State, grant non-citizens suffrage? Yes.
Can the government, Federal or State, remove suffrage from citizens? Yes, as long as they abide by the restrictions of the 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments.
We are a long way from the original topic, which was "What rights does a non-citizen resident have under the constitution?" and the answer is all of them except the right to hold elected office and the "right" to vote. To go even further back on topic, does a non-citizen resident have the right to free movement? And the answer is yes, rights shall not be abridged without due process of law, so until someone has been brought to trial they have the rights associated with being a free person.
Regarding the 6.6% of non-citizens who vote, how many of them are voting legally, that is, how many of them have been granted suffrage by the state in which they reside?
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
I guess it's safe to put all the 911 hijackers in the no fly list now... Based on cold hard facts.
I would rather be banned in error from flying than travel on a flight that was targeted by terrorists simply because the bar was lowered by some liberal ass who has no idea just how determined these terrorist scum are to kill innocents at the first opportunity. You use reasoned logic and apply it to unreasonable and illogical people... reason and logic go out the window when you are dealing with a person who is willing to happily give his worthless life in exchange for the deaths of as many of his perceived enemies as they can. Add to that the promise of fame as a martyr and 72 virgins in the after life and you have plenty of incentive for terrorists to trade their current miserable existence for a pipedream that things will be better in heaven.
People who think terrorist scum should be treated as normal people obviously havent lost anyone to terrorism. Otherwise they would understand that inconveniencing a few people who tick certain boxes is better than making it easier for these animals to achieve their goals.
The greatest threat to western civilization is islamic terrorism... the second biggest threat to it in my opinion is liberal extremism who seeks to enable personal freedom at any cost. There should be a robust appeals process for the no-fly list but there should NOT be evidential appeals which could play into the hands of terrorists. Terrorists are at WAR with the west, the sooner these laissez-faire fanatics get that into their heads and learn that sacrifices need to be made to ensure the proper security of the vast majority of the population the better and safer the West will be.
This sounds to me like what is called "prior restraint", which I thought was illegal.
Like, you can't put someone in jail just because you "thought" they might rob a bank.
At one instant in time the no fly list was intended to be a list of
people that posed a risk while flying.
Now it is a list to restrict the free movement of individuals.
Persons that pose a national security risk do so sitting at home.
I am not sure this list continues to provide a service. It does
deny components of life, liberty and the pursuit of happyness.
It does so without due process...
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.