Why some of us, fight the "no fly no buy" legislation so hard...

[virginia mountainman]

And why you should too....

It is pure folly, to tie a civil right, to a secret list, that you have no idea you on it (till the last possible second) and it is nearly impossible to get off of it, when you find out you are on it..And no one can tell you just HOW you got on it.

Ohio - Alyssa Thomas, 6, is a little girl who is already under the spotlight of the federal government. Her family recently discovered that Alyssa is on the "no fly" list maintained by U.S. Homeland Security.

"We were, like, puzzled," said Dr. Santhosh Thomas. "I'm like, well, she's kinda six-years-old and this is not something that should be typical."

Dr. Thomas and his wife were made aware of the listing during a recent trip from Cleveland to Minneapolis. The ticket agent at the Continental counter at Hopkins Airport notified the family. "They said, well, she's on the list. We're like, okay, what's the story? What do we have to do to get off the list? This isn't exactly the list we want to be on," said Dr. Thomas.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations in Cleveland will confirm that a list exists, but for national security reasons, no one will discuss who is on the list or why.

The Thomas family was allowed to make their trip but they were told to contact Homeland Security to clear-up the matter. Alyssa just received a letter from the government, notifying the six-year-old that nothing will be changed and they won't confirm nor deny any information they have about her or someone else with the same name.

http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-news-westlake-ohio-six-year-old-no-fly-list,0,1122601.story

EDIT: this Bush era secret list must go.

[GoneOffShore]

1. Read some of the idiot comments on the story.

I'm amazed that some folks actually manage to walk out their doors of a morning.

[Parche]

2. FatherLand Security Looks for Al-KIDder

:rofl::rofl: :hi:

[grantcart]

3. this is what your congressman is for.

[virginia mountainman]

4. Some of them are having trouble with the "no fly" list too..

U.S. Representative John Lewis (D-GA)

In August 2004, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) told a Senate Judiciary Committee discussing the No Fly List that he had appeared on the list and had been repeatedly delayed at airports. He said it had taken him three weeks of appeals directly to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to have him removed from the list. Kennedy said he was eventually told that the name "T Kennedy" was added to the list because it was once used as an alias of a suspected terrorist. There are an estimated 7,000 American men whose legal names correspond to "T Kennedy". (Senator Kennedy, whose first name was Edward and for whom "Ted" was only a nickname, would not have been one of them.) Recognizing that as a U.S. Senator he was in a privileged position of being able to contact Ridge, Kennedy said of "ordinary citizens": "How are they going to be able to get to be treated fairly and not have their rights abused?"<32> Former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani pointed to this incident as an example for the necessity to "rethink aviation security" in an essay on homeland security published while he was seeking the Republican nomination for the 2008 presidential election.

Robert J. Johnson, a surgeon and a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, was told in 2006 that he was on the list, although he had had no problem in flying the month before. Johnson was running as a Democrat against U.S. Representative John McHugh, a Republican. Johnson wondered whether he was on the list because of his opposition to the Iraq War. He stated, "This could just be a government screw-up, but I don't know, and they won't tell me."[31

[dipsydoodle]

5. Sounds like the film Brazil

.

[kenny blankenship]

9. Or any police state of the last 100 years

[virginia mountainman]

10. Yep it does. NT

[treestar]

6. How hard is it for them to separate the 6 year old from the terrorist

who used that name? I guess they will do it eventually. Bureaucracies can be so weird.

[Dawson Leery]

7. Just one of many idiotic laws on the books.

Along with the 3-strikes nonsense.

[EFerrari]

8. Reform it or pull the funding. n/t

[Dead_Parrot]

11. "The FBI says they'll rely on the common sense of the security agents."

Well she's fucked, then.

[Dawson Leery]

12. So they are relying on the common sense of Sarah Palin then.

[virginia mountainman]

13. Evidently, some are :"ok" with that.. NT

[johnaries]

14. As someone who was actually ON the list, it's not that big a deal.

Yes, I was on the list, or at leaast my name was. Probably because I have a very common name. I was doing a lot of customer installs, so I used to fly a lot on business. Everytime I would go to the kiosk, it would direct me to a Customer Service rep. They would check my DL, make a call and read off my DOB. Then they'd give me a boarding pass with a punch on it. When the gate Security guard saw the punch, they'd pull me out of line and do a quick search, then let me go through. The whole thing took AT MOST an extra 10 minutes. After a while, it just became a joke. When I traveled once with my aunt, I warned her about it and told her I was "on the list" but she didn't believe me. Until she watched it happen. I joked that it was probably because of all the anti-Bush letters I'd written (he was still in office at the time).

Eventually, it just stopped. I guess they caught the guy with my name.

But the list has done a lot of good. Remember the crotch bomber?

It's a trivial hassle compared to the benefits.

[Confusious]

15. Sorry, flying is not a civil right.

I never do it myself. 15 years since I stepped foot on a plane. It's only been 2 years since I was on the other side of the country.

Saying it is a civil right is stretching the term beyond belief.

So people who were alive before the wright brothers were missing a right they never even knew about. Boy, shouldn't they be pissed!

[strategery blunder]

16. The SCOTUS has previously held that "travel," in a broader sense, is a civil right.

Although the facts from which previous cases arose may not have involved flying (it's nearly 4 AM and I have insomnia, but I can provide a bit more detail later if needed, though I am not a lawyer), the right to fly may be a "reasonable extension" of the broader right to travel, and not really "stretching the term beyond belief" at all.

Note, however, that this wouldn't necessarily mean that the right to fly would be unlimited; for example, just as the right to free speech tends to end after political protests turn into Molotov cocktail riots, unruly passengers who threaten airport employees/engage in other criminal activity related to flying could justifiably have their "right" to travel restricted. Sure, other methods of travel exist, but for crossing the entire country, they are far more time-inefficient and most of them are far more burdensome.

What bothers me is not so much the fact that the list exists, but that there is no due process to get off the list if you are erroneously placed.

[Confusious]

18. I would agree, the right to travel freely is a civil right

But if you can't see, you can't drive a car. You get someone to help you. There are limits on how when why. People still have the right to travel across the country, they just can't do it in a plane. Convenience is not a compelling argument. My toilet may be closer, but that doesn't give a stranger the right to take a crap in it without asking.

I'm for a list that keeps dangerous people off the plane, gives you reasons you're on it, and being taken off that list if on it erroneously. I don't like the fact they won't tell you why your on it. That pisses me off even more then the people who want to frame everything as a "civil rights" issue. My cat thinks she has a "civil right" to tuna.

Sorry if I sound pissy.

[strategery blunder]

23. I gave an example of why "civil rights" may not be absolute.

I indicated that I could see valid reasons for having a no-fly list, provided that there is sufficient due process to correct errors (which, currently, there is not). I suspect we are more in agreement than you might think.

I look at it this way: Travel, including flying, is a right. I don't buy your toilet analogy; by default, if you can fly, so can I, given our equal status under the law as Americans. HOWEVER, as with everything else in law, there are exceptions, and I'm all for recognizing exceptions that keep dangerous people off of planes. I just want due process so that the parents of little six-year-old girls who don't represent a threat to anyone can get their daughter off of that list. Currently, there is no due process; the best the family can do is go to their congresscritter and hope that congresscritter has enough influence with the relevant government agencies to recify the problem. As the family is not in the plutonomic elite, the chances of such a political appeal succeeding are not good. (Perhaps the list should contain other identifiers in addition to names, to reduce the incidence of false positives from people having the same name, as well.)

[virginia mountainman]

17. "No fly no buy" is not about flying or travel..

It is about the right, to buy, or even mearly possess guns... Which is a civil right.

OpenCongress Summary
This bill would further specify the scope of the Second Amendment by prohibiting individuals who are prevented from boarding an aircraft because they have been put on the TSA's no-fly list from selling, transferring, or possessing firearms or ammunition. In other words, it calls for all names on the no-fly list to be automatically added to the no-buy list under the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2401/show

[Confusious]

19. You can help the firearm impared in the group next time

I haven't heard of the "no fly no buy" law, I thought your post was about the little girl. Sometimes it helps to have a little background for those of us who aren't gun nuts.

And as I said above, I would agree that free travel is a civil right, but if you can't see, you can't drive a car. You get someone to help you. There are limits on how when why. People still have the right to travel across the country, they just can't do it in a plane. Convenience is not a compelling argument. My toilet may be closer, but that doesn't give a stranger the right to take a crap in it without asking.

I'm for a list that keeps dangerous people off the plane, gives you reasons you're on it, and being taken off that list if on it erroneously. I don't like the fact they won't tell you why your on it.

They use our enjoyment and need to travel to lock onto our privates and not let go. If you want more of an explanation of that, I will provide.

[virginia mountainman]

20. Evidently you have not seen the news lately..

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127876711

And, "gun nut" is very bigoted, and offensive term... Use of such terms here in DU, can get you tombstoned.

[Confusious]

22. What, is it just me?

I pay attention, but one can't keep up with everything. Usually, you can ask, and people are nice and helpful. There are exceptions HERE and there.

As for "the words" I see people use it here all the time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2778387
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x438507
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x903828
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3245245
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8340352

and it's not bigoted:

The correct use of the term requires the elements of intolerance, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs.

The term has evolved to refer to persons hostile to people of differing race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, and religion in modern English usage.

I used it as a descriptive term, with none of that present, except in your mind. I owned a gun, for a little while, and have shot guns. and a pretty good shot too. That really doesn't rise to intolerance, irrationality or animosity. unless one has a poor understanding of the definition of bigotry.

If you have such a problem with it, why don't you report it. I think threats can get you there just as quick.

[Curmudgeoness]

21. So are you also saying that it is not an invasion of civil rights

when you are listed on a "do not fly" list for no reason that can be divulged?