More Bad Ideas: Congressional Rep Suggests Participants In The Attack On The Capitol Building Be Added To The No-Fly List
from the we-need-less-of-this,-not-more dept
Proving that 2020 wasn't done with us yet, January 6, 2021 added a new horror to the long list of things that showed "may you live in interesting times" is a curse, rather than a blessing. Urged on by the guy less than ten days away from being escorted from the premises by security and his favorite legal advocate -- one that advocated for "trial by combat" over the election results -- Trump supporters invaded Washington, DC, hoping to somehow nullify the election through intimidation and violence.
This violent debacle (and it was violent -- five people dead and two explosive devices recovered) has resulted in a lot of backlash. The most immediate backlash will be felt by some of the red-hatted crowd that broke into the Capitol building in hopes of preventing election certification. An executive order signed by Trump -- one targeting "violent, left-wing extremists" -- will instead be used to enhance the prison sentences of violent, right-wing extremists. Perhaps the worst president in history will exit the office with his supporters feeling the brunt of this incredible self-own. MAGA, indeed.
But it's back to business as usual, now that things have settled down. An attack on the election process has resulted in calls for action. And calls for action prompted by singular events with almost no chance of being repeated almost always result in things being made worse for millions of citizens who did nothing more than watch in horror as events unfolded.
The 9/11 attacks resulted in an expansion of the surveillance state. The tragic attack was leveraged to take power away from the people and give it to their government instead. The same thing appears to be happening now, with President-elect Joe Biden demanding a War on (Domestic) Terrorism. And other legislators are demanding more be done now, ignoring the dire repercussions of their demands in favor of inflicting pain on people who didn't vote for them. (h/t Sam Mintz)
Flight attendants felt disturbed by the presence of Capitol Hill invaders on flights out of DC. This is fine. And, as private companies, airlines can certainly refuse to allow certain people to board their planes. But this private objection is being made public, courtesy of Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. He wants these private complaints to become public by adding alleged "insurrectionists" to the incredibly expansive no-fly lists maintained by the federal government.
Given the heinous domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol yesterday, I am urging the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use their authorities to add the names of all identified individuals involved in the attack to the federal No-Fly List and keep them off planes. This should include all individuals identified as having entered the Capitol building—an intrusion which threatened the safety of Members of Congress and staff and served as an attack on our Nation.
We already saw reports of ‘unruly mobs’ in the air on the way to Washington, D.C. It does not take much imagination to envision how they might act out on their way out of D.C. if allowed to fly unfettered. This is an action that TSA and the FBI, by law, are able to take but, to my knowledge, have not yet taken. Alleged perpetrators of a domestic terrorist attack who have been identified by the FBI should be held accountable.
Lots to unpack here.
First, the TSA should not be given any permission to do anything, given that it's done almost nothing with the vast amount of leeway it's already been granted.
Second, no-fly lists are an unconstitutional mess. Even given the massive amount of deference judges grant to "national security" arguments, courts remain unconvinced that forbidding someone from flying (and then refusing to even acknowledge this fact, much less given them a chance to challenge this determination) isn't a violation of their rights.
Adding a bunch of people to the no-fly list isn't a good idea, especially when the government has plenty of power to deal with the perpetrators of this Capitol Hill invasion without deciding they're no longer allowed to board airplanes. As Rep. Thompson says, perpetrators should be held accountable. There are plenty of laws on the books -- and one recent executive order -- that will help federal prosecutors achieve this goal. Banning perps from flying doesn't change anything about the prosecutorial matrix.
And if someone can be identified and added to a no-fly list, chances are they can be identified, arrested, and prosecuted. So the watchlist is just punitive damage with almost zero recourse. Let the law take its course. Leave the no-fly list out of it. If airlines want to refuse to serve suspects facing prosecution for the Capitol raid, they can do so. The government doesn't need to be involved. Federal agencies can BOLO suspects without putting them on a watchlist that severely curtails their ability to travel. And that's all it should do at this point, since we're supposed to presume innocence before determining guilt.
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Filed Under: bad ideas, bennie thompson, due process, insurrection, no fly list, riots, tsa
Reader Comments
The First Word
“If you want there not to be a no fly list, fine, I agree with you. But if there is going to be one, leaving off well-documented white domestic terrorists while keeping all the brown people on it for whatever weird post-911 reason is inherently racist and unfair.
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So you are saying the airlines should all keep their own no fly lists and whatever terror threats they can each identify with their own sleuthing should be added to those lists by the airlines? I don't really think that is realistic while there is a central one in place that has way more resources for identifying the threats and abolishing the list altogether is a whole different question than whether these people should be on it
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Table-pounding
Like the return of "war on terrorism" rhetoric, this is a very unfortunate response that is reminiscent of the worst abuses of the Bush administration. Clearly Thompson and other lawmakers, like most of us, were shocked by last week's events and are struggling to come up with a response that seems adequate; without any clear way to solve the underlying problems, though, it seems that they've resorted to louder table-pounding. (Re-labeling criminals as terrorists may not carry much legal weight, but it does make it clear to your constituents that you think that this Really Bad Thing was actually a Really, Really Bad Thing.) Unfortunately, this posturing is not free, in the sense that it further consolidates the use of extra-legal, due-process-free weapons like no-fly lists as mainstream punishments.
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Tim, I believe the problem with that is that it isn't cruel and unusual enough for the people driving it to feel like they have 'done something'.
Lots of vocal people seem to believe that if they think they have been hurt, they need to hurt the believed perpetrator (or who ever they can convince themselves should be held accountable). Which is the opposite of what the justice system is for. And that just plays into some less savory politicians hands.
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People received the death penalty for similar offences.
There are people who have been executed or are on death row for similar offenses: people who participated in a robbery while one of their accomplices killed someone, but did not know their accomplice was armed or would kill someone.
For example: Jeffery Lee Wood
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Well, if anyone deserves to be on the 'no-fly' list, it's these domestic terrorists. However, because I'm opposed to the very existence of this extrajudicial penalty, I have to agree it's a bad idea.
Hey, if it does happen, maybe there'd be some court cases that might have a chance at getting a "this is unconstitutional" ruling. That'd be nice.
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Rush rush rush to pass things to get the good soundbites & damn looking even 30 minutes into the future.
Someone want to point out that with all of the super powers we gave out after 911, they didn't see a single white supremacist attack before it happened in the country & they weren't hiding int he dark they did it in the open & the system decided that white folk would NEVER launch a terror attack.
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Lists, and more lists.
We already have enough problems with LISTS.
So what has been shown of this country?
That Neither side is what it is. That Neither side is being held culpable to the people. That they Both are filled with those that would Do anything for money?
Neither will display information on what they wish to achieve. Nor accomplish. They dont even ask Us what they should be doing.
Those few that followed trumps words were confused and didnt understand what is happening, Nor who to turn to, to get things Fixed. For all the power they could weld, they didnt look Closer. Get the Congress to Change. They are Employees not doing a good job. And if it were on us to be as silly, we would not have a job. Those in congress have over time created a Life time Job, where there should be none. The Best in medical, retirement, and many other benefits. But I cant blame 1 side or the other.
We have let them create a system of the "better of 2 evils". They get to choose the Sacrifice that leans this nation, That way or this. Of 30% of this nation has this ability, the other 70% get no choice. And a wonder that we can get over 50% of the people to vote at all.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/US_Vote_for_President_as_Share_of_Pop ulation.png/800px-US_Vote_for_President_as_Share_of_Population.png
As a share of total population. not just voter eligible.
328 million population/Voting age 257million/Eligible 239million
Something like 70 million under Age?(21%)
-10% not eligible for Crimes, and not legally in the USA?
Those people only saw 1 way to fix things. Probably because they have seen all the past, that nothing is helping.
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Since when is flying a constitutional right? Travel, sure; flying specifically, I don't buy it.
I'm actually okay with this.
Yes, there are problems with no-fly lists, but their existence alone doesn't bother me.
Besides, if non-colored people get added to the list, maybe the republicans might actually push to fix the problems with them.
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That is one way to fix it.
Putting a bunch of loud, entitled, non-minority people on the list would be a great way to find out what an unconstitutional mess the law really is. Could there possibly be something positive as a result?
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'Keep them off a plane and they're harmless, somehow.'
Ah the no-fly list, a bunch of people who are supposedly such massive threats to the public that they cannot be allowed to travel in a particular fashion, but not so dangerous that they could be investigated, arrested, tried or jailed.
Yeah, insurrectionists assholes absolutely deserve to have the book thrown at them as hard as possible, charged and tried for their actions, but not to the extent of making use of a system that shouldn't have been created in the first place and is well overdue to be shut down.
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I'm not sure what good banning them from flying will do given how many of them were driven there by their mums. Good job they'll still have the Trump Train to ride on, eh?
Seriously though, the no fly list is arbitrary and stupid, including countless innocent people. 2001 proved it's a useless relic, anyone who should be on that list will either not be on the list, or find a way around it.
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Oh no! Not Joe!
I am confident that adding Joe Smith and John Johnson to the No Fly List will cause no "false positive" problems for anyone anywhere. /s
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Re: That is one way to fix it.
FTFY
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Re:
Perhaps you do not realize the full extent of what being on government watchlists does to a person.
Right to fly? What about the right to travel by sea? What about the right to exit the country at all? It doesn't take many iterations of "we won't allow you to do that either" to eliminate the right to travel for most people, and only a very few more to eliminate it for the exceptions too.
And, to be honest, there are a lot of us for whom "they're too dangerous to be allowed on a plane at all, but not dangerous enough to incarcerate" - that is, the whole rationale for the list - is one of the "problems" we would see fixed.
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Re:
Isn't realistic? They already refuse service to whomever, whenever. Always have. They do not need to "maintain no-fly lists".
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If anyone deserves to be on a government watchlist, it’s a group of people who stormed the Capitol with the intent to murder at least two people and topple the American government.
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Re: Re:
yeah having the ability refuse anyone service isn't the problem it's figuring out who to refuse. If you want to do what the article proposes and have the airlines decide to not allow anyone involved in the riot onboard of their own decision rather than a no fly list then the airlines need to have a way to filter all their potential passengers to try to figure out if they were involved in the riot. If that list of rioters doesn't come from the gov where does it come from
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Reform the No Fly List
Really a No Fly list wouldn't be bad if it had proper vetting and due process - it wouldn't be anything like what we have now. That anyone with active warrants for their arrest can't fly unless held in law enforcement custody would be more than reasonable. If they are out on bail then only barring international flights without prior court approval and attendant other conditions would also be fair.
But that is more an "anti-fugitive list" as opposed to the bullshit "too dangerous to fly but not dangerous enough to have cause for arrest" superposition. The only reason that would make sense is if they had something absurd like a X-men style mutant power which amplified gravity the higher above the ground they were but are otherwise harmless. "Sorry but you can't fly because your presence crashes the plane through no fault of your own."
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Re: Re: That is one way to fix it.
Not really! You don't defend free speech by demanding opponents be gagged either. An underlying cause of political polarization is the world economic crisis that has been smoldering since 2008. They've got plenty of laws with which to prosecute those who engaged in murder and violent attacks. If you want a system of justice to take its course you can't be demanding the use of clearly unjust methods. The US Federal government has plenty of police power as it is and few people escape a federal conviction at trial.
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Meanwhile on Twitter
Video is being shared about people getting surprised in airports and on planes because they've been no-fly'd, in some cases because their faces have been identified on video during the Capitol raid on January 6th.
So some of them already are on a no-fly list. Though I can't say it's the no fly list.
That one, which has long had no accountability, no means to check a no-fly status, and no means to challenge that status (including court orders which have been repeatedly ignored) should be disbanded anyway.
It's mostly full of Muslims that some white supremacists put on there for the lulz anyway.
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Re: Meanwhile on Twitter
In at least one of those, the individual in question had been banned by American Airlines for insisting on flying maskless, but thought that the 'I've been banned for assaulting the Capitol' would make better video.
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Solution seems simple to me: make it a temporary assignment to that list. One possible condition might be that if "Person of Interest XYZ" has been charged with violence against the USA, then they are automatically placed on this temporary list. If they beat the rap, then they're removed, simple as that. (Well, as simple as government is usually capable of.) If they fall to the axe, then the temporary condition is made permanent.
Consider it sort of akin to jail until bail is made - in no way is such considered a punishment without due process, so this shouldn't be either.
As to why this discussion has cropped up, I agree that knee-jerk reactions are always bad, particularly where government in any guise is concerned. But to allow one or more wrong-headed yahoos to tramp around the country and likely repeat their misdeeds, that's simply asking for more gnashing of hair and pulling of teeth, don't you think? Make the no-fly condition temporary until the case is decided; that's how we do it for other kinds of accused perpetrators, so why not here?
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Re: Re: Re:
Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. Not like they don't have the footage already. Hell, I bet DeepFace is already trying to figure out who's in that footage for tagging and false profile purposes. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they sold that info to the government for a price.
I suspect we'll eventually have a company credit score that denies all aspects of society if you behave a certain way and the big corps find out about it.
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Re: Table-pounding
That's more or less the result of having corrupt idiots run the country. The vast majority of them are ill-prepared to actually execute the responsibilities entrusted to them. Worse, we have many of them in the house that actually still support the traitor in chief due to political hackery.
There's not much that can be done about it in the short term either. Unless you want to get visited by the FBI, the general public is stuck with who they've got until 2022 / 2024 at the earliest. The most we can do now is find people to primary them when the time comes.
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Re:
Let's head down this rabbit hole.....
Flying in a plane? Nope. They can travel in other ways.
Driving a car? Nope. They can travel in other ways.
Riding a boat? Nope. They can travel in other ways.
Taking a bus? Nope. They can travel in other ways.
Hiching a ride in a truck? Nope. They can travel in other ways.
Walking across an arbitrarily drawn line on a map? Nope. They can travel in other ways.
Crawling to me and begging for my permission to move? Wellllll maybe if you're willing to do something for me....
This hole goes deep. Rights are not something to be taken away because you have a disagreement with others or think less of them for some reason. Especially when such taking is done extrajudicially.
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Re: Re: That is one way to fix it.
Oh, my fellow Mr. Coward, are you offended at something?
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Re: Re:
"Rights are not something to be taken away because you have a disagreement with others"
If you think that attempting to overthrow a democratically elected government is merely a "disagreement", you might have a point but many would favour a different description.
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Off on a tangent here but, the people who scream on airplanes causing all sorts of trouble and have to be removed ... why do some of them wear a Burger King paper crown?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
If by "denied all aspects of society" you mean you aren't able to force people who don't like you to work for you. Just go start racist asshole psycho air.
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Regarding "And, to be honest, there are a lot of us for whom "they're too dangerous to be allowed on a plane at all, but not dangerous enough to incarcerate" - that is, the whole rationale for the list - is one of the "problems" we would see fixed."
Regarding those who were not just inside the Capitol, but at the rally inciting the Riot, they are dangerous enough to incarcerate and should be.
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The Court of Lazy
The no-fly list is a way to punish people for virtually anything without having to expend the effort to do so in a court of law.
You may not have a right to fly but because a service is being denied because of a secret list maintained by the government, it is unconstitutional in the same way being blacklisted for being "unamerican" and refusing to name people in a congressional kangaroo court is unconstitutional.
The most powerful people have powers they shouldn't because gullible people allow it during a time of crisis.
Hilary Clinton suggested that another list, the terror watchlist, with millions of names of people not charged in a court of law, be used to deny second amendment rights. Had this been successful I'm sure more would be used to justify the denial of other rights.
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Re:
The thing is, the government is not supposed to be able to do anything unless the constitution authorizes it. They don't get to do whatever they want to you that doesn't violate an enumerated right. Curtailing any freedoms at all, whether guaranteed by the constitution or not, should require a sufficient governmental interest (where sufficiency depends on various factors) backed up by specific constitutional authority. The way the no fly list has been operated is... not that.
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Common carriers and the duty to transport
"As private companies, airlines can certainly refuse to allow certain people to board their planes."
Actually, as common carriers, that's exactly what they can't do: they have a legal obligation to transport all passengers willing to pay the fare and comply with the conditions of carriage in their tariff.
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Re: The Court of Lazy
"The no-fly list is a way to punish people for virtually anything without having to expend the effort to do so in a court of law"
It's also a way to say "hey, many violent revolutionaries and known terrorists aren't the type of people we should be letting into a confined inescapable confined space for a few hours". If the argument is about rights, then whose is more important - the person who has committed acts that make them potential dangers to everyone to travel in a specific way, or the couple hundred other people to not risk death any more than necessary?
"The most powerful people have powers they shouldn't because gullible people allow it during a time of crisis."
Yes, and it was a bad thing that those were granted, but the people who warned that the PATRIOT act was a bad idea were shouted down by many of the same people now suddenly scared of those powers being used against people who think like them.
"Hilary Clinton suggested that another list, the terror watchlist, with millions of names of people not charged in a court of law, be used to deny second amendment rights"
She can suggest whatever she wants. Did she get anywhere with that? Or, is this a preview of what the next 4 years is going to look like - action that is justified being rejected with a "but but what I imagine Clinton might have done would have been worse!"?
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Re: Common carriers and the duty to transport
"they have a legal obligation to transport all passengers willing to pay the fare"
Interesting. Can you cite that law for me? Because it sounds like a bad situation if it states that it can't deny service to drunk, violent or otherwise abusive passengers.
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This is is part of a much wider war on conservatives.
One reporter from a conservative leaning channel went through unsually invasive secondary inspection returning from abroad, and it could be conservatives being targeted.
If you are a conservative in any way, or moderate, if you if you work for certain conservative leaning news outlets, both on air and online, you might want to securely wipe all your devices and re install the OS and all your programs before travelling, so that anything you don't know about that could get you in trouble can never be recovered, even with the best forensic investigation software.
And if you are a conservative travelling in any "blue" state in the Constitution Free Zone, you would be well advised to turn the security on your phone up to insane cop proof levels where police cannot get anything off your phone should they decide to use asset forfeiture to take your electronics. Encrypt is and then activate the "booby trap" that causes your phone to wipe and reset after too many failed password attempts.
Because I used to run an online radio station years ago that did feature some shows that were run by consitutionalists and believers in free speech, I now wipe my devices and reinstall the operating system on all my devices before I take road trips to Canada, Mexico, or Central America, so that any device search at the border will not get anything I don't know about that could get me into trouble, as well as my phones set to insane cop proof security levels, so that if my phones are seized anywhere asset forfeititure is allowed they will not be able to get at the contents.
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Re:
"This is is part of a much wider war on conservatives."
No, it's part of a wider war on insurrectionists. So strange how people who tried to overthrow the government and prevent the execution of a free democratic process would get some comeback on the issue from said government...
"One reporter from a conservative leaning channel went through unsually invasive secondary inspection returning from abroad"
Like this one?
https://theintercept.com/2019/06/22/cbp-border-searches-journalists/
Oh wait, no, it seems that there are many examples of journalists of all persuasions being subjected to these things.
"it could be conservatives being targeted"
Or... it could be everyone being targeted, you guys just love to whine about your persecution complex when it affects you.
"I now wipe my devices and reinstall the operating system on all my devices before I take road trips to Canada, Mexico, or Central America, so that any device search at the border will not get anything I don't know about that could get me into trouble"
Which is, strangely, good advice for anyone travelling through the US border nowadays. I just don't hear people with other political persuasions whining so much as if they're the only ones needing to do it.
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Re: Re:
It is not just Customs, it is these places where they have asset forefeiture.
Becuase I like to go to Canada's Wonderland, being an amusement park junkie, there is no way to get to Toronto without driving through Michigan, so I set the security on my phones to insane cop proof levels so my electronics are ever seized while going through Michigan to get to the Canadian border, the contents will be inacsessible.
Coming the west coast, you have to go through Michigan to get to the border crossing for the highway to goes to Toronto. I usually take the shorter route on I-275 from Toledo, Ohio, because I can through Michigan in one day.
And they cannot come back later and prosecute me because I secured my elecrtronics where they could not access the contents. There is no law in Michigan where I could be prosecuted because they could not access my devices after seizing them.
Sure, a Michigan LEO could seize my electronics as part of asset forfeiture, but I could never be forced to give up my passwords, later on, because the 5th amendment would not allow for that.
As for the reporter who did go through an unusually invasive search, she works as an outlet, whose name cannot really be mentioned here. Some people here do not like that outlets name being mentioned, but is was recently when coming back from Central America
And wiping your device is a good idea when entering any of 5 eyes countries (US,UK,Australia, NZ, Canada).
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Re: Re: Re:
Weird, everything you're saying is generally good advice, but does not back your claim that there's a crusade against conservatives specifically at all.
"Some people here do not like that outlets name being mentioned"
My experience here is that people don't mind you mentioning anything you want. But, there are certain known rabble-rousing fiction peddlers that will get you laughed at immediately if you try passing them off as a reliable source on certain subjects. These outlets often lie outright about the "left" and persecution. Which suggests that there might be a very different story behind what happened to that reporter if you investigate further than their own claims.
What you're saying seems to suggest that you're taking the word at face value of someone who is known to lie about anti-conservative bias, so that's not particularly convincing, while everything else you're saying applies to everyone equally no matter their political stance. I can't say for sure if this is the case based on the evidence you've presented, but that's certainly how it appears from where I'm sitting.
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If you want there not to be a no fly list, fine, I agree with you. But if there is going to be one, leaving off well-documented white domestic terrorists while keeping all the brown people on it for whatever weird post-911 reason is inherently racist and unfair.
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Re:
Exactly. Such an inaccurately maintained document shouldn't be something that's able to restrict peoples' freedom. But, if an innocent person who happens to share a name with one of a Muslim that is suspected (but not convicted) of something can have their rights restricted, then someone who was actually part of a mob that's increasingly known to have intended to kidnap or murder elected officials deserves their place on that list.
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Re: Re: Common carriers and the duty to transport
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If caught-red-handed-and-still-currently-active violent terrorists shouldn't be put on the no-fly list, who should?
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Re:
As presently constituted, nobody should. It should be discontinued and replaced with something that doesn't have its many serious flaws.
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Re: Re:
Agreed, but while it does exist this does seem to be a perfectly justifiable use for it.
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Re: Re: Re:
What I'm saying is as long as it's in its current form there is no justified use of it.
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