You have to understand, if you are on the list, you may not know it till you try to fly. If you do not know if your name is on the list, the people who control the list can not be compelled to show if your name is on the list till it causes you some sort of harm. What harm do you incur if your name in on the list and you never fly? The answer is none and thus no grounds to file an action to get your name off the list.
Thus it takes a denial of the right to fly to give you a cause of action. The problem is if you are denied to right to fly, did you have other options and if you did you have the legal duty to minimize your lost by taking that option. If you do not, again you have no cause of action for you did not minimize your lost. On domestic flights you have the option of driving.
Now, if you are denied and file in court, the court can dismiss the action due to the problem being moot. You were denied a flight, the flight has flown, thus you can NOT get on that flight and any thus the action is moot. If you claim you are worried about it is the future, the court could rule they will rule on that whenever it occurs and you get in front of them BEFORE the flight flys. i.e. every time you try to fly, by the time you get to court, the ability to fly on that flight is gone and thus the action is moot (now the courts MAY work around this, for example in Roe vs Wade the Court ruled the Plaintiff had standing even through she had given birth to the child she technically wanted to abort, previous efforts to get an abortion issue in front of the US Supreme Court had failed on mootness grounds,. i.e. the mother gave birth thus her right to an abortion was moot).
I see Courts adopting the same policy as to flights, the ban is on US flights, internal US Flights you have the option to fly or take the train (Length of travel is NOT an issue), on oversea flights that involves treaties and the US can deny anyone on those flights for any reason so if you are denied because you are the list, the courts will say the list, as applied to overseas flights, is governed by treaty and nothing they can do.
Firearms is a different area. If you are denied you can then file an action in court on why you are on the list, and the court would have to rule on that issue. As long as you want to buy the weapon in dispute, the case is NOT moot. Thus you could force whoever controls the list to defend why your name is on the list and the court will have to rule on that issue, can not avoid making the decision on the grounds the issue is moot.
I suspect this is why it was proposed by two Democrats, it would permit someone to challenge they name on the list and the demand can not become moot due to the weapon being sold to a third party. I also suspect that is why it was defeated by the GOP majority in the house. The GOP does NOT want a court case that can rule the no fly list is unconstitutional. Remember the Proposition 8 ruling by the US Supreme Court was NOT that it violated the 14th Amendment but that since the California Attorney General or the Governor was NOT defending the law, no one else had standing to do so. The same with the No Fly List, adding it to the list of people banned from buying guns, gives such a person standing to challenge the law and his or her name being on the No Fly List.
No the voting seems to reflect a desire and a fear that this would give people standing to challenge the No Fly List. Thus why and who offered it and why it was voted down.
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