The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Tuesday that a man’s challenge to his former placement on the No Fly List can move forward, finding the government failed to show his lawsuit is moot. Yonas Fikr…
Fikre alleges that he traveled to Sudan in late 2009 in pursuit of growing an electronics business in his native East Africa. The FBI questioned him while in Sudan, according to court filings, telling Fikre he was on the No Fly List and could be removed if he became an informant.
Fikre allegedly refused and moved to the United Arab Emirates, where he claims he was then abducted and tortured for months by the country’s secret police at the FBI’s request. After leaving the United Arab Emirates, Fikre says he moved to Sweden, filed his lawsuit and sought asylum.
“In at least some instances, requiring the Government to disclose sensitive information regarding its grounds for placing or removing a person from the No-Fly List could undermine the Government’s significant interests in airline safety and the prevention of terrorist attack,” Alito wrote.
Horseshit. I don't know what part of "due process" people don't understand. If the government is limiting your right to movement, they need to prove why when questioned. No exceptions. Especially so if the individual(s) in question have not been charged with any crime.
You must have forgotten about the Patriot Act. "Terrorists" don't get rights, and we don't have to tell you why we think you're a terrorist. (And that's super fucked up and unconstitutional)
A terrorist is whoever says something that the current administration doesn’t agree with. And the internet makes it very, very easy to “find” terrorists
Agreed. Public safety is making everyone aware and allowing them to make informed decisions. Public safety is not hiding information hoping the problem solves itself.
While I agree that this should be handled with due process, I disagree with your conclusion that this is infringing on someone's right of movement (outside of international flights.)
It would affect your access to a mode of transportation, but not the transportation itself. Something that we already have restrictions on outside of air travel, such as drivers licenses.
Regardless, it's still a fucked up authoritarian list and process.
I applaud SCOTUS for not allowing the Federal Government to retract Fikre's listing and then claim the issue is "moot" to avoid a potentially unfavorable ruling.
The No Fly List needs to be de-invented. Immediately.
Same as the sex offender registry in the US. If it was only for a very select group of high risk people.. but they put people on there for so many small things, it has lost its purpose.
I think the concept has merit, the problem is the complete lack of accountability and transparency.
Fix those points and you have a fairly reasonable way to stop people with criminal histories from just skipping the country and running to a no extradition country to escape justice.
2009 was the first year of the Obama presidency, and changes at the DOJ and FBI are slow. So my first question is: Who signed off on his mistreatment? Whose name is on the order, and did that person start at the FBI with Obama, or in an earlier administration?
The government should not be allowed to make a case moot just because it would be inconvenient for them. I'm pretty sure that by the time SCOTUS grants cert, it's because there's a genuine legal principle that needs resolving, not just for the individual case. (At least in normal times, current court notwithstanding.)
There was a golden moment, after the raid on Trump's club, when reactionaries were openly calling to de-fund the FBI. Dems should have taken them up on that offer.
Whenever the FBI "disrupts" a terrorist plot. Until proven otherwise, I assume that the FBI masterminded the plot, provided all the materials and funding, then arrest the people they recruited. And you watch, now that focus has been shifted to reactionary terrorism, they're going to do the same shit, except replace Islamist suckers for militia patsies. It's important to remember this because these tactics shift resources to railroad dumbasses (easy) instead of investigating the actual threats (hard).
Strong arming Fikre to become a snitch reminds me of what happened to Randy Weaver.
When I was an Afghanistan analyst, people would ask me about the role of their NDS. My 10 second speech was to say they are like the FBI, but without any tradecraft. Guess I should have stopped after FBI. Cuz they, sure as shootin', don't have any either.
While I'm very much in favor of a No Fly List in principle, the way it is implemented is just obviously unconstitutional.
I get that if you make the list publicly available, or even only available if you ask if you are on it, that lets potential enemies know they've been identified and possibly infiltrated. There's a reason why certain pieces of seemingly inconsequential information is classified, because if the enemy knows we know, then they know we've put a spy in their ranks. And depending on the information, it might be easy for them to identify WHO the spy is. But this has real-world impacts on real people, and if you have no idea why you are on there, that you are even on there, or how to get off of there, then that is horribly unconstitutional.
Why have a no fly list? If it was for unruly people that went through the court process that would be one thing (still would be unfair but less so than what we have).