State Secrets, No-Fly List Showdown Looms 216
schwit1 writes "The Obama Administration and a federal judge in San Francisco appear to be headed for a showdown over the controversial state secrets privilege in a case about the U.S. government's 'no-fly' list for air travel. U.S. District Judge William Alsup is also bucking the federal government's longstanding assertion that only the executive branch can authorize access to classified information. From the article: 'The disputes arose in a lawsuit Malaysian citizen and former Stanford student Rahinah Ibrahim filed seven years ago after she was denied travel and briefly detained at the San Francisco airport in 2005, apparently due to being on the no-fly list. In an order issued earlier this month and made public Friday, Alsup instructed lawyers for the government to "show cause" why at least nine documents it labeled as classified should not be turned over to Ibrahim's lawyers. Alsup said he'd examined the documents and concluded that portions of some of them and the entirety of others could be shown to Ibrahim's attorneys without implicating national security.'"
Re:sudden outbreak of judicial mental clarity (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts" (Score:4, Informative)
The plot-point was "Denny Crane" couldn't even fly on his private jet because his name was an alias for a terrorist.
Private planes are exempt from TSA regulations. You don't get checked against the no-fly list, and you don't get groped. Those affluent enough to afford their own plane are above the rules the rest of us peons must obey.
Re:TRUTH... apk (Score:0, Informative)
I browse at -1, and it's not really annoying. All I have to do is collapse the entire comment thread.
Re:Strings or records? (Score:5, Informative)
As I am given to understand it, the No-Fly list consists of a list of the names of known terrorists, terrorist suspects, and the aliases that they have used. Back in 2004, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy was stopped and questioned [washingtonpost.com] five times at airports because "T. Kennedy" was an alias used by a terrorist suspect. It took the senator and his staff more than three weeks to get his name removed -- a process likely to be more painful and time-consuming for the average individual who only has access to the DHS TRIP [dhs.gov] ('Traveler Redress Inquiry Program') site.
Re:Boston Legal episode..."Nuts" (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the rules surrounding private planes are pretty strict.
They're trying to make them even more so:
http://www.dhs.gov/general-aviation [dhs.gov]
Even as it is, there's a whole host of people who can turn up unannounced and check a number of things, including searching you and the airplane, without requiring a warrant, btw.
Re:There should never have been a non-fly list (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, as a non-USA resident I don't see why I should be denied access to a flight either, as long as I have a valid ticket, ID and visa etc. just because I shared a name with a suspected bad guy. Rights in the USA are only for citizens now? You don't think you should have rights when you come to Europe?
But rest assured, we have the same bullshit here too. Recently I was stopped while in transit in Switzerland because I have the same name as a guy who apparently did not pay his parking fines. The border guard said that they had to right to put me in prison until I paid. (I checked later; unbelievably this is true).
Fortunately I was able to prove that I was not the same guy...
Re:No-fly list should be a no fly (Score:4, Informative)
Are you sure about that? or is it just semantics.
We certainly don't have a direct democracy; your vote is merely an optional symbolic show of support for your "representative". Voting is not even an obligation of a citizen; they don't even try to hide how little it really means, or the minimal value our opinions hold.
A citizen has 3 obligations: obey the law, pay taxes, and subject to jury duty. One for each branch of government. I don't see voting anywhere in that list as a symbolic type of action for government related "decision making".
If your representative incidentally speaks or acts on your behalf and you can do nothing to intercede since you have neither the place or the means to make a protest, does it matter what it's called if people view their rule a militaristic or representative type of governance?
How often are public protests or even public opinion on a topic simply ignored by our "representatives" as they carry on with their day to day?
So yes, they are our leaders and we depend on their decisions as leaders so that our futures may be secure. And as a final point the term "Senator" or "Representative" as prefixed to the name of an elected official in the senate or house is a title of nobility. Citizen is another one. Why do you think that is? Do you even know that the implications of titles of nobility are?
Re:Strings or records? (Score:5, Informative)
Awhile back, 60 Minutes had a story on the No-Fly list, and there was a terrorist named "Robert Johnson", IIRC (if not, it was something similarly common), and a whole bunch of people were screwed from that one.