Since the “no fly” list was formalized in 2001, the only way to know if the U.S. government would allow you to get on a plane was to show up at the airport and try to board a flight. The government would generally neither confirm nor deny that you were on the list, let alone tell you why.
On April 14, the government announced a new procedure for blacklisted travelers to try to clear themselves. Passengers who are denied boarding can lodge a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security, which will provide confirmation of their “No Fly List status,” and an unclassified summary of the reason why — unless providing that information would go against “national security and law enforcement interests.” The passengers can then appeal their status.
The notice of the new procedures came in court filings in several cases where plaintiffs have challenged their inclusion on the list.
Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, called the new procedures “grossly inadequate” and said her organization is already challenging them in court. The ACLU is representing 13 U.S. citizens who sued over the no fly list in 2010.
Last year a federal judge found that the government’s old redress process — which never confirmed or denied anyone’s status — was unconstitutional. The government’s response was the new procedures, which Shamsi says still doesn’t go far enough.
“One of our clients was provided a single cryptic sentence saying he had traveled to a particular country in a particular year. There are incomplete reasons, no evidence provided, and no hearing at which our clients can present their own evidence and cross-examine the government’s witnesses,” she said.
“The inadequate process the government provided to our clients is what it’s now formalizing for everyone else,” she added.
Gadeir Abbas, an attorney for Gulet Mohamed, a U.S. citizen who in 2011 was barred from flying home to Virginia from Kuwait, called the new redress process “entirely one-sided.”
Tag: No-Fly List
Notorious Felon and Terrorist Has No Trouble Flying, Thank You Very Much
I don’t much like DHS, and I really don’t like TSA, but I’m cool with DHSOIG because it seems to be genuinely trying to get TSA to shape up, even if TSA just ignores it.
That’s the DHS Office of the Inspector General, which has released report after report pointing out TSA mistakes and buffoonery, my favorite of which is now OIG-15-45, “Allegation of Granting Expedited Screening Through TSA Pre[Check] Improperly [Redacted],” even if it is redacted. This is a remarkable document.
Here’s what happened (sorry if this is hard to read—the document appears to be “secured” against cutting and pasting):
Just to be clear, although the identity of Sufficiently Notorious Convicted Felon (hereinafter, “Felon”) has been redacted, the federal government believes this about him/her: “The traveler is a former member of a domestic terrorist group. While a member, the traveler was involved in numerous felonious criminal activities that led to arrest and conviction. After serving a multiple-year sentence, the traveler was released from prison.”
These criminal activities included “murder and offenses that involve explosives.” We know that because TSA concluded that Felon was not actually a member of TSA Pre[Check]. Or, at least, TSA did not find a record of this person applying to be a member. Nor was Felon just in the Pre[Check] lane because they weren’t busy or something like that; Felon’s boarding pass actually had Pre[Check] marking on it, including an encrypted barcode. It appears, although most of the relevant stuff is redacted, that Felon was somehow cleared through the Secure Flight program, which allows such people to print their own boarding passes.
Exactly how this happened is, of course, redacted, but may have to do with the various “no-fly lists.” I infer that from the fact that OIG made a recommendation that had to do with these lists (the recommendation itself is redacted), and TSA told it to get lost. Had the relevant intelligence/law-enforcement communities felt this person was a risk, TSA responded, they’d have put him/her on a list (so this person clearly was not on such a list). So it’s the list-makers’ fault, according to TSA.