Gov't Puts Witness On No Fly List, Then Denies Having Done So 462
cathyreisenwitz sends word of a San Francisco trial in which the U.S. government appears to be manipulating the no-fly list to its advantage. The court case involves a Stanford Ph.D. student who was barred from returning to the U.S. after visiting her native Malaysia. She's one of roughly 700,000 people on the no-fly list. Here's the sketchy part: the woman's eldest daughter, who was born in the U.S. and is a U.S. citizen, was called as a witness for the trial. Unfortunately, she mysteriously found herself on the no-fly list as well, and wasn't able to board a plane to come to the trial. Lawyers for the Department of Justice told the court that she simply missed her plane, but she was able to provide documents from the airline explaining that the Department of Homeland Security was not allowing her to fly.
Re:Southwest.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Papers, Please [papersplea.se].
No one watches the watchers (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No popcorn yet (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just drive there (Score:4, Interesting)
Very interesting implication (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine this sequence of events:
1. A perfectly legal subpoena is issued for someone to appear as a witness, while they're a plane's flight away from home.
2. Put witness on no-fly list.
3. Cite witness for contempt of court for failing to appear.
Boom, you now have a tool for the intelligence community, with the help of a friendly (or blackmailed) judge to put anyone away they like, for any reason they like, at least for a little while. And sure, the contempt citation would eventually be reversed on appeal due to the obvious entrapment issue (the government caused the witness to fail to appear due to its own actions), but by then whoever was targeted has already had their life thoroughly screwed up.
Re:Rule of Law (Score:3, Interesting)
This sort of lawlessness and unaccountability is precisely what Michael Cannon testified to congress about. [infowars.com] He asserted that what this leads to no one wants to think about. But that by following this path to its conclusion can end no other way as in all of human history, no one has succeeded in that sort of domination and abuse..
If you asked me if this was possible 20 years ago, I would have said "Yes, and they have already done it. We have some freedoms, but no real control. We're happy and comfortable slaves by and large." And it was true. There was a middle class and we had ways and means to improve our lives if we really wanted to. Not that we had any hope of being a 1%er or anyone particiarly powerful, but we could all potentially live a good life with reasonable comfort, safety and the ability for the persuit of happiness.
These days, the greed of wanting more and/or the ambition of the 1%ers trying to squeeze more people into their circles or whatever the hell has gone wrong, they have gone off the rails and exceeded the limits which have brought their evil into the light while people aren't distracted by TV and shopping and sports and celebrities. Instead, people are suffering while things are getting worse and they are already looking for people to blame. Bad way to treat your slaves 1%ers. You were supposed to keep us happy and unaware. You failed.
Re:Let's see what the judge says... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll simply ask you to google "Adam Kokesh." He has been charged with violation of that ban. As a form of protest, he went into DC with a shotgun, turned on a video camera, loaded and made ready his weapon and then posted it on the internet.
Please learn and stop presuming. The NRA is a lobby group. They are still fighting that and many other laws. Lobbyists are most effective at preventing new law and helping to write new law. That's what lobbyists do.
Re:No popcorn yet (Score:3, Interesting)
It's illegal for the airlines to disclose if someone is on the no fly list, let alone why. And depending on the airline DHS might not even tell them why they are denying them. That's the biggest injustice of the whole thing. You can't know if you are on it, you can't challenge being on it and no one in the airline industry is allowed to assist you in any way.
The judge likely doesn't believe it because he's not aware of how unjust the no-fly lists are and like most American's he's naive enough to believe that the government wouldn't create an unaccountable list of names with no way to challenge inclusion in the list.
Re:Let's see what the judge says... (Score:5, Interesting)
Another question. Can't the judge summarily rule against the government since they wouldn't allow the person to testify? Essentially they've denied a fair trial and he could just drop the hammer.
It is a good thing I am not a member of the bar...
I think you are wondering if he can dismiss the case....
Yes he can.
I am wondering if he can dismiss the case with prejudice so it cannot be refiled.
I hope he can.
I am wondering if he can incarcerate the entire prosecution team
for contempt of court.
I hope he does if it is clear that they tampered with witnesses.
It is a federal crime to tamper with witnesses and conspiracy amplifies
the reach of the crime.
The recent revelation of a false conviction based on withheld evidence
by the prosecution makes me want to see 4x penalty. The man spent
25 some years in jail. Those that knew should be locked up for 100 years
and have their lives turned inside out. Abuse of power is difficult
to tolerate.
Re:Southwest.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The internet is only "empowering" because they allow it. Which means it is not empowering at all, because they are not actually threatened by it.
It is easy to turn it off, just pull a plug. And they haven't even begun the process of locking it down. Once they mandate authentication as a prerequisite for access it's pretty much game over. Try using your phone anonymously! Seriously, would you use your phone to plan a terrorist attack? Soon the entire internet will be like that, whether we like it or not, and we'll be back to the days of clandestine face to face meetings in lonely places if we want privacy... except good luck getting there, with cameras on the street corners (Hi, UK!), drones in the air (Hi, USA!), and cars reporting your movements with GPS (whassup, Oregon!), cops demanding to see the papers of pedestrians (its for immigration, really).
The internet gives an illusion of power, an illusion of actually making your voice heard, an illusion of anonymity. Even the best anonymity we have is crackable by the NSA with sufficient motivation. Your voice? Drowned in a sea of clamor, cat pictures, celeb gossip, and media propaganda. Yet the feds can still hear you crystal clear, pick you out of the crowd and send a SWAT team to your house at 2am. Too bad they are the only ones. Slashdot, you're preaching to the choir here. It's just another soapbox illusion, gets us all riled up but we're still cooking with all the other frogs, with no escape and little hope.
Re:Let's see what the judge says... (Score:2, Interesting)
That is not the same law that was overturned. The USSC did not strike down all gun control in DC. They struck down a limited portion of the handgun restrictions.
You need to go back to high school and learn how to read.
Re:Southwest.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The Nazi regime didn't last long, because it started war after war until it was everyone's enemy - sounds familiar? And East German government lasted for 45 years because it had the backing of a greater power, and fell pretty much instantly when that backing failed.
Anyway, the US doesn't really resemble either. Nazis and Communists were ideology-based tyrants, while the US looks more like a failing state: the economy continues getting worse, everyone loots as much of the pie as they can to themselves and their friends, tribalism rises, the state tries to compensate with ever-increasing internal security (both surveillance and "though" penalties), the rulers mostly live in and react to their own little world... It's the standard "rot from the inside" pattern of collapse, with the "blinded by past glories" flavour.
Re:Southwest.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Lincoln, who freed the slaves, was a Republican; in fact, he was the first Republican president. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Democrat, helped to found the KKK and was its first Grand Wizard. Virtually all of the authors of "Jim Crow" legislation after the Civil War were Democrats. Democrat Senator Richard Byrd, who died only a few years ago, cut his teeth on politics as the Grand Kleagle of the Klan. Sheriff "Bull" Connor was not only a Democrat, he was a member of the Democratic National Committee. Virtually all of the big-name racists in the country before 1964 were Democrats, and LBJ was only able to pass the Civil Rights Bill with a lot of Republican support.
It's true that the Bushs were no friends to Liberty, but the Clinton/Obama machine has been FAR worse in terms of the surveillance state.
Re:Southwest.. (Score:4, Interesting)
It wasn't just Arab-Americans (Score:4, Interesting)
My coworker, who was from Pakistan, didn't get interned, but he did get hauled in to show his papers. I think he had a green card at the time; he's a citizen now. But Muslim, so that made him suspicious, even though he's non-political.