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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.
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.
Ironically, given the recent OPM and IRS breaches, Clinton's server was perhaps more secure than the State Department's... :-)
Not a REASONABLE choice.
This is what happense when people relenquish CONTROL. Homeland security and their TSA dogs were supposed to just keep everybody safe, but we see it is much more than that. It's only a matter of time. until they expand on the information they require. They have already asked me for the name of Facebook account, and other information; disinformation can be useful. I provided them with nothing because "I don't have one".
TSA is also located in train stations and bus stations, and we already have Border Patrol with checkpoints far away from the border, and other law enforcement setting up checkpoints in other parts of the country, and the judges are just going along with it, which makes them accessories, or just plain stupid. They have metal detectors and police in schools, and there are rumors of Metal detectors and armed guards being set up at movie theatres and malls.
This is exactly what the Nazis did. It's what happens in all totalitarian societies, when powerful people get into political offices, and those people need removed. And many people are convinced that peaceul solutions are no longer an option.
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.
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.
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.
Any law anywhere, about anything restricts someone's freedom. And yeah, no laws is indeed anarchy. But everyone is free then, but of course, there are those who insist that one of their freedoms is removing freedoms from others.
We see this in areas like gay marriage, where there are groups that would deny marriage to other groups, even though the other group being married has no iimpact on them at all, except foro removing their freedom to restrict the other group's freedom.
It's a paradox. But it's real. Actual freedom does not exist. The mere act of forming a society restricts freedom greatly. And that's probably a good thing.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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!
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)"
What is important is if they have a totalitarian mindset or not.
Not really - the neuroscience on this is pretty clear - exercising power makes them into bad people. It's a long, slow process for most, but the brain's reward system is something that science can study, has studied in this case, and has found clear results.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)