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Federal judge rules U.S. no-fly list violates Constitution
- enraged_camel 12y agoThe title is a bit misleading. The judge did not rule that the No Fly List itself is unconstitutional. The government can still have such a list and put you on it. The only difference is that they now have to notify people as such and provide reasons as well as easy ways to appeal your inclusion. I find this to be a minor victory at best. In my opinion, the elephant in the room is that there is a No Fly List in the first place. If someone is deemed so dangerous that they should not be allowed to get on an airplane, they should be in prison. After all, that's one reason why we have prisons: to keep dangerous people away from society. What can such people do on an airplane that they can't do on a bus or a train?
- TallGuyShort 12y ago>> individuals listed under the policy may ultimately petition a U.S. appeals court directly for relief Why isn't it the other way around? Shouldn't they have to prove to a judge that there is reasonable suspicion you are or have been engaged in terrorism before they can interfere in your affairs?
- higherpurpose 12y agoGuilty until proven innocent.
- adventured 12y agoYou're absolutely correct. They should have to provide evidence proving legitimate concerns about the person in question, preferably to a civilian judicial court that is public, and each person has to be manually confirmed to be a danger and then put on the list. Then there should be a transparent, straight-forward way to challenge it.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- higherpurpose 12y agoNow if only we'd get a similar ruling for no-warrant "border" searches, where border can mean tens of miles from the actual border.
- tobinfricke 12y agoApparently it has been asserted that this special border region extends inward 100 miles from borders and coastlines. This swath includes around 2/3 of the US population. http://rt.com/usa/court-upholds-laptop-border-searches-041/ http://rt.com/usa/court-upholds-laptop-border-searches-041/ https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-constitution-free-zone-map https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-constitution-free-zone...
- IanDrake 12y agoYoutube has got some great videos of people enforcing their rights at these stops.
- maxerickson 12y agoThat happened in the 1970s: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/413/266/case.html https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/413/266/case.htm... Then the ability to simply stop vehicles near the border was curtailed (the ruling still allows a stop given specific information): http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/422/873/ http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/422/873/
- blahedo 12y agoCurtailed? I can personally confirm that as of just a few years ago, all vehicles passing various roadblocks in southern Arizona and New Mexico (including one across an entire interstate) are stopped and questioned. I assume this continues today.
- maxerickson 12y agoDid those check points match the ACLU description or were they more like a temporary border stop? Prior to that second case, the border patrol asserted the right to make random stops because they suspected someone in the car was Mexican. The Supreme Court decided they couldn't do that, but they are careful to say that the decision doesn't apply to the border and "functional equivalents".
- XorNot 12y agoAbout time. There's no human being on Earth so dangerous they can't be safely put on an airplane.
- unreal37 12y agoI might question that statement. Being a passenger on an airplane requires you to accept a certain amount of responsibility. A person unable to behave properly and/or refrain from harming others in some way (angry, drunk, high, insane, actively trying to crash the airplane, physically abusive, having a communicable disease, etc) should probably be banned from air travel until their behavior and/or ability to harm others can be controlled.
- reustle 12y agoI have never smoked in my life, and I don't plan to, but did you just put people that are high in the same bucket as drunks and insane people? They are very different types of people.
- nickpapa 12y agoMarijuana isn't the only drug that gets you high. He was using "high" in the sense of other, more harmful drugs that completely distort your reality and can cause you to become violent. Remember the bath salt incidents a while back?
- pavel_lishin 12y ago"high" doesn't imply only marijuana. I would prefer to not be on the same airplane as someone who's just consumed a large amount of methamphetamines, or LSD, or cocaine.
- interurban 12y agoGetting high isn't just limited to smoking marijuana... There are a huge array of substances that could cause safety concerns for passengers on an airplane.
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- middleclick 12y ago"The 13 plaintiffs - four of them veterans of the U.S. military - deny they have links to terrorism and say they only learned of their no-fly status when they arrived at an airport and were blocked from boarding a flight." This truly fits the definition of a Kafkaesque system -- you are put on a list and you are denied justice and never told what your crime is. Great work by the ACLU.
- swalsh 12y agoOnly made worse by the fact that they gave a few of what is for most people the most productive years of their lives to defend it.
- revelation 12y agoWell, in many cases there is no crime. Given the ridiculous amount of people on the list and the way the form is designed, a large number will be on there due to a "mistake" in filling out the form. Theres an excerpt of the form here: http://papersplease.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/vgtof-form.png http://papersplease.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/vgtof-... Notice how you have to check the box to indicate someone is not to be added to the list. It is completely counter-intuitive. I'd say it is just badly designed, but we're far beyond innocent mistakes here, at this point there needs to be judicial and personal responsibility for the people involved in its creation and ongoing maintenance.
- chris_wot 12y agoThe court raises issues of quality assurance in their discussion of the issues surrounding the case. They noted the issues but made no judgement, but it seems likely to me that the Court wasn't very impressed.
- zhengyi13 12y agoApart from the cognitive difficulties this creates, forcing you to check the box means the default is to add someone to the no-fly list (see Dan Ariely's research)
- unreal37 12y agoThis seems like the right decision to me. Being blocked from air travel is indeed a violation of liberty. I think the U.S. government has a right to keep a list of suspicious persons, watch and monitor them, block them from visiting the United States, but there should be a way to appeal your inclusion on that list especially if you are a U.S. legal resident or citizen. You can't just remain on that list forever, unable to travel, with no evidence or justifiable proof of criminal association with terrorists. That's limbo.
- jevinskie 12y agoDoes this ruling imply some sort of "right to travel"?
- chadgeidel 12y agoI always assumed the right was implicit. (Potentially ignorant US citizen here)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jevinskie 12y agoWell it gets muddy when it isn't just walking around. For instance, most states require that you consent to a breathalyzer test or your license is revoked. Somehow the Fourth didn't apply in those cases.
- ISL 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_United_States_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unite...
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- unreal37 12y agoFrom the article it seems like the judge has said that the right to freedom includes the ability to travel out of the country or across country. It's just not reasonable to require some segment of the population (500-20,000 people) to take a boat to go to Europe, with no trial or ability to appeal. Movement is restricted. It doesn't seem like a right on it's own, so much as included in the existing right to "liberty". My 2 cents.
- adventured 12y agoAt a minimum challenging these systems is a good thing. Most were put into place with zero debate, no serious judicial challenges, and zero input from the general public (whom they have the greatest impact on). Whether or not the no-fly list can really be stopped through a normal judicial means at this point, I think that's up for debate given how far the US Government has gone past concerning itself for the rule of law.
- motbob 12y agoThe ruling only applies to U.S. citizens. As mentioned in the article, the vast majority of people on the list are non-citizens. EDIT: Or perhaps it does apply to non-citizens when they are on U.S. soil. I'm not sure.
- pc86 12y agoThe Constitution applies to anyone within the US, citizen or not.
- dragonwriter 12y agoMore accurately, the U.S. Constitution applies to the US government, not to the people it interacts with. Some of its rules are preconditioned on dealings with certain classes of people, however, so citizenship is sometimes relevant to Constitutional considerations.
- pc86 12y agoYes that is an important clarification. Thank you.
- aarkling 12y agoYes in most cases it applies to all US residents. But many don't apply to non-residents who still live in the US. For Eg: international students.
- pc86 12y agoDo you have an example? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just can't think of anything off the top of my head that wouldn't apply to an international student. The second amendment comes to mind, but there are Alien Firearms Licenses available.
- INTPnerd 12y ago"Brown wrote in her 65-page ruling." 65 pages! They need some good programmers to help them refactor that to be shorter, more expressive, more readable, and changeable using the DRY principal and such.
- forgottenpass 12y agousing the DRY principal and such Repeating yourself is actually very important in court opinions. It shows that the court has considered all the case materials, claims, and legal precedent to clearly spell out what all of that means and how they factor into the findings of law. They're very readable to people trained in the art, or the moderately-engaged passersby. Additionally, courts typically write with narrow margins and/or heavy line spacing.
- chris_wot 12y agoIt appears to be 38 pages. And actually it's very readable: https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/latif_v_holder_opinion_and_order.pdf https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/latif_v_hold...
- Aqueous 12y agoI do not believe a judge currently has to authorize someone's placement on the No Fly List, which right away raises red flags. So the No Fly List is definitely unconstitutional as it is currently implemented, but I wonder if it would be replaced a constitutional implementation. For instance, if FBI, CIA, or NSA had to clear a probable cause legal hurdle in order to place someone on the list, and if a judge, rather than the TSA, had to approve their placement, then the program might be constitutional. The proceedings might have to be secret, so the no fly list would function like some NSA programs that I know folks here are so fond of (note: sarcasm) - but at least it would involve the judiciary rather than giving the executive branch carte blanche to prohibit anyone it deems suspect from travelling.
- saraid216 12y agoI'm pretty sure such a constitutional implementation already exists: namely, they can just revoke your passport, which I think has to go through due process.
- webmaven 12y agoVery welcome news. I hope it will have a positive impact on cases like http://www.papersplease.org/wp/category/freedom-to-travel/ http://www.papersplease.org/wp/category/freedom-to-travel/
- tiedemann 12y agoThe US needs to rewrite some of that amendment stuff. It clearly sucks.