People On No-Fly List Can Sue In District Court 241
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "According to a new ruling, those put on the No-Fly List can challenge their inclusion in federal court. Previously, they had to go directly to an appellate court, which would deprive them of any chance to subpoena documents or witnesses and make gathering evidence difficult or impossible. Knowing the government, they will get around this by creating a 'No-Sue' list and making it even harder to change your name."
Of course. (Score:1, Insightful)
A Big Problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A Big Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
What next, national gun ownership registration lists?
No, no, people are brainwashed enough to think that if they can still have their gun, they're not living in a totalitarian state.
You don't need to take people's guns away if you've already poisoned their minds with your crap.
Good Thing! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:A Big Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Totally Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
Denise Robinson says she tells the skycaps her son is on the list, tips heavily and is given boarding passes. And booking her son as "J. Pierce Robinson" also has let the family bypass the watch list hassle.
Capt. James Robinson said he has learned that "Jim Robinson" and "J.K. Robinson" are not on the list.
Terrorist's wouldn't even need to use fake names! They'd just need to abbreviate their real ones.
What a sad state of affairs.
Re:Anyone wanna bet... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, no. It'll be a much more nefarious list that maintained by an agency which nobody officially acknowledges exists and that they're not legally allowed to tell you about.
It'll be a special list for agitators and other enemies of the state who challenge the authority of the government and disagree with the official policies or who report on embarrassing truths.
Its existence and specifics will be deemed a matter of "Executive Privilege" and those who create it will claim they don't need to be accountable to the public since the president said it was OK.
And then, 1984 will have truly arrived. We get closer every day. *sigh* Where'd I leave my roll of foil?
Cheers
Re:Of course. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Totally Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
And, what's more astounding is that it would work.
For all of the braying about how this list would improve safety, if you can just slightly change the way you present your name (and still use the same piece of ID) and get onto a plane, the list of less than useless.
We've already known they can't tell the difference between two "John Smiths", but if they can't even identify the same "John Smith", then this really is a farce.
Unbelievable.
Cheers
Re:What use is it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure it works. No terrorist attacks on planes in the U.S. since they started using it....so it must work!
It's Downhill from Here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What use is it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Remind me to show you how to keep elephants away...
Everyon's on the "no sue list" (Score:3, Insightful)
Clever, but I doubt it. They'll just do what this administration does every time they get sued: They'll claim that they can't provide any information for National Security reasons.
Re:What use is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Watch yourself. Those who question The List are probably destined to end up on The List.
Understand.....whether or not it works for the stated purpose is utterly irrelevant. All that matters is that ignorant people believe that it works. It's like Homeopathic Government. Rule by Placebo.
And also understand.....all these draconian measures have little or nothing to do, really, with fighting terrorism. That's the "cover story." It's all about control -- control of "We, the people." The people who more and more are considered an utterly irrelevant nuisance to those in power.
Re:A Big Problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, why does Ashcroft or Bush get any credit for 2nd amendment? I seem to recall a thing called the court system that had to overturn washington specific problems created by people before and supported through (the bush administration). I would give absolutely 0 credit to either of them for that. Once again the Judicial branch had to come to the rescue.
To blame anyone, blame Judge Scalia for being retarded on the issue.
Re:Terrorism? This stuff is cake compared to befor (Score:5, Insightful)
The no-fly list is also nothing compared to the rest of what the Bush administration had pushed through with the help of a Congress that either supports him or too spineless to stand up to him.
I don't know of people that were held indefinitely overseas without access to counsel or even a description of what they've been charged with as a result of alleged drug dealing. The Reagan and Clinton administration actually appeared to respect the anti-domestic spying laws passed in the wake of Nixon's abuses; now on top of spying laws that appear to be unconstitutional on their face, Bush's people are stepping beyond the modest limits set by their own laws.
Bush may not have opened the action, but he's certainly raised the stakes with the PATRIOT Act, his watered-down FISA law, and signing statements effectively saying he's not going to obey certain sections of laws that show up on his desk. It's not like he could have vetoed those laws and asked Congress to draft versions that Bush approved -- oh wait, he could have.
Now we've got the Nixon-era racketeering laws (not specifically drug-related, though he was certainly opposed to illicit drugs), the asset forfeiture you mentioned, the extremely harsh and internally inconsistent drug laws, and now a return of domestic spying and indefinite detention. The last, which before Bush hadn't been seen in earnest since WWII, is an especially troubling development. Now it's conceivable to spend the rest of your life in a military camp without trial if you're judged to be an enemy combatant.
Invasion of privacy and property are bad, but infringing on someone's physical freedom is much, much worse. And unfortunately, I agree that many judges don't even seem to care what the Constitution says; it wouldn't shock me at all if despite the 13th Amendment some federal court decided slavery was once again legal.
Just because his predecessors infringed liberties doesn't give G. W. Bush or his successors the right to do so. And I would argue that our current president has been the most aggressive in history, with Nixon a close second.
We now have "wars" against terrorism, drugs, child pornography, drunk driving, and probably some other domestic causes; in addition to two actual wars and possibly two more on the horizon (Iran and Georgia). Why can't some general come out and say that if you spend all your time and money starting wars, you won't win any of them? I guess our recent commanders-in-chief don't seem to grasp that concept.
Re:Of course. (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait....because they can add children, that makes it worse?? Geez, when did everything become 'about the children'. There is nothing special about them, and society needs to quit catering to them and their parents...This is a "grownups" world, lets start treating it that way again.
Children are simply little people who have yet to reach the age of majority.
The no fly list is screwing with people...age one way or another does not make it worse or better.
Re:Of course. (Score:3, Insightful)
When you have a two year-old on the list, it makes it more stupid.
Um, I think perhaps you should read up some on childhood development, particularly about personality development and maturity.
Re:Totally Pointless (Score:3, Insightful)
Well yes - and by what criteria are these people (their names, really) getting on the list in the first place? If it's a simple name match, no biographical details, no biometric data - what was the point of US-VISIT, the program to collect biometric data from foreign travelers [america.gov] crossing our borders?
According to Stanford's website, Ibrahim was a doctoral candidate in construction engineering [stanford.edu], and her resume [stanford.edu] details her bachelors and masters in architecture. Ibrahim's doctoral thesis was about organizational disorganization [stanford.edu] - perhaps the very thing DHS is suffering from with the No-Fly list.
Outward indicators show she's a well-educated, upstanding member of society. I mean, if she had some sort of criminal or terroristic background to justify being on No-Fly, wouldn't the government have presented that in their defense of the suit? A quick read of the court's findings show the defense seems to be about jurisdiction and standing.
Weird? (Score:4, Insightful)
As Per Reports Written in the 1970s (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:CNN link to someone doing it. (Score:5, Insightful)
The crazy principle is, by their logic you are not proving who you are, you are proving who you aren't. Now if that other person is such a threat that under no circumstance should they be allowed to board a plane etc. then why aren't they keeping track of their location sufficiently well to know that they are not at your current location attempting to board a plane.
Re:Of course. (Score:5, Insightful)
How he's better than a constitutional scholar for running the executive branch.
You mean the Constitutional Scholar that voted for a bill including retroactive telecom immunity and warrantless wiretapping?
I think Obama is the best choice out of the five who are running but don't delude yourself into thinking that he has anymore respect for the rule of law than any of the other 43 Presidents we had. He'll expand the power of the Executive Branch just like all the others have.
Hell, it's not really surprising that Presidents would want to expand the power of their own branch. What's surprising/depressing is that the other two branches let them get away with it.
Does our constitution work? Such long delays... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not a rhetorical question. I read things like this and on the one hand, I think, "It's OK, I'm not being a boiled frog about this, we still have our fundamental civil liberties, the mills of justice turn slowly but in the end the Constitution is upheld."
Then on the other hand, I think, "maybe the mills of justice can't keep up with the number of wooden shoes the Administration is able to toss into them." When did all the nonsense begin? The secret, no-appeal, the-reason-why-this-is-classified-is-classified lists... and the "oh, you have no right to appeal because you're not actually ON the no-fly list, it's just that you can't fly because your name RESEMBLES a name on the no-fly list, but of course we can't tell you the name that's really ON the no-fly list. The searches for which no warrant is required because they're "random," even though some people get "randomly" searched almost every time they fly and others never get "randomly" searched at all... ...the people held at Guantanamo without charges and without trial for five years, long than many prison sentences...
If the executive branch can abrogate a constitutional right instantly just by issuing an order, and it takes the judicial branch five to ten years to undo it, is the system working?
As I say, it's not a rhetorical question. Maybe that IS good enough.
Re:CNN link to someone doing it. (Score:3, Insightful)
This says it all.
"Since airing a story this summer about how Correspondent Drew Griffin began getting told he was on the watch list -- coincidentally after he wrote a series critical of the TSA's Federal Air Marshal Service -- CNN has received dozens of e-mails and iReport submissions from viewers who also have found themselves on the watch list."
Some one in the U.S needs to sue TSA for corruption and illegal activate. Ending up on a terror watch list just for criticizing TSA is nothing but corruption.
Something is rotten in TSA.
Re:Time To Push Back on the Bastards! (Score:2, Insightful)
The solution, however, is not to lay down and take it, which is how I read (misread?) your post.
Re:Of course. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, it's not really surprising that Presidents would want to expand the power of their own branch. What's surprising/depressing is that the other two branches let them get away with it.
It's not surprising when all three branches were controlled by the same party.
The three branches were designed to oppose each other, not to be in the same hands, if the electorate allows that to happen, well, they get the government they deserve, it seems.
Re:Totally Pointless (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, there's your problem. The Ibrahim is a Muslim involved in construction. Osama bin Laden is a Muslim involved in construction. Therefore Ibrahim is Osama bin laden. Perfect government logic.