While this is true, it is also true that many people think "where there's smoke, there's fire".

Or, to put it another way, governments can make people disappear by publishing such lists and having the police be busy somewhere else when a mob happens.

If someone was on a no fly list and they wanted the general public to know, they could just put it out there themselves. No? This seems more likely to be used as a form of public shaming than a way to expose injustice.

> If someone was on a no fly list and they wanted the general public to know, they could just put it out there themselves. No?

How would they know? How would they prove it?

There's a known case a few years ago where a woman was trapped away from the US for 3 years - her estranged husband put her on the list when she went to visit her parents, and boom, she's not allowed into the US and no-one will tell her why, making it easy for him to get divorced and keep the house.

(If she'd known what had happened, and been able to put her hands on enough money, she could maybe have flown to Canada/Mexico and entered overland; all she knew was she was denied boarding)

>There's a known case a few years ago where a woman was trapped away from the US for 3 years - her estranged husband put her on the list when she went to visit her parents, and boom, she's not allowed into the US and no-one will tell her why, making it easy for him to get divorced and keep the house.

How does one "put her on the list"? It's not that easy.

Apparently if you happen to be working in the right government department then it is. It was only discovered when he applied for a promotion and they did an extended background check.

* * *

You can almost certainly get anyone put on this list by simply creating an email account like [email protected] and sending out a few threatening emails to the right places.

It's not like the federal government sends you a letter to tell you about it and what to do if you have an issue with it. While you raise a valid concern, I think it's a lot more likely to function as the basis of a class action suit - a sufficiently plausible and timely piece of evidence that would move a court to compel proper discovery.

That's actually exactly what they do.

If you are a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, and the TSC determines that you are on the No Fly List, DHS TRIP will send you a letter informing you of your status on the No Fly List and providing the option to submit and receive additional information.

https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/what-do-if-you-think-y...

Yes...after you submit a form asking why you were denied boarding, as was stated in the opening paragraph. You don't get notified automatically when you are put on the list.

I have been told a few times that I am on the no fly list, so I avoid planes - that, and I am nearly 7 feet tall.

Is my only way to discover if I am allowed on an airplane is to buy a ticket and get subsequently denied on the boarding gate/security? No FOIA request, or anything similar, to circumnavigate this?

Thank you.

Yes this is insane. I’m a U.S. citizen and if I’m not allowed to fly because of some arbitrary national security measure then that measure had better be public information and known before I book a ticket. If my government has denied you the right to travel without telling you why I genuinely and sincerely apologize and take responsibility because it should not work like that and ideally I should be able to vote out the people who made that decision.

What if you are a US citizen, and it has recently been discovered you have been secretly dealing arms to Russia against current sanctions. And while authorities do not currently know your location they suspect you will be flying to/from Russia very soon?

Should they let you know not to book a flight?

That's totally different - indictments are usually sealed before arrests in the kind of case you're talking about and there is longstanding precedent for that to prevent flight from prosecution. They would arrest you for ITAR and IEEPA violations before you board. That kind of thing happened long before the no fly list. That is different than an opaque list with a million people on it most of which have never been accused of anything and where there is an expensive appeals process and the government is allowed to use secret evidence.

Why do you think they put people on the no fly list?

It's very well documented, no point in speculating.

https://www.tsa.gov/travel/passenger-support/travel-redress-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List

> The No Fly List is a small subset of the U.S. government Terrorist Screening Database (also known as the terrorist watchlist) that contains the identity information of known or suspected terrorists.

The TSA comment above is pretty straight forward but to be fair the wiki article is filled with instances of speculation.

The way people end up on this list is super opaque, but it's certainly not used to catch wanted criminals.

In fact, the US doesn't have super reliable systems to stop fugitives at airports except on entry.

Why does your citizenship status matter? The right to domestic travel within the United States is enjoyed equally by everyone within the US.

Are you sure of that? Rights attributed generally to "the people" in the constitution can be limited from being enjoyed based on immigration.

For instance, "the people" have the right to keep and bear arms but god help you if you're here irregularly or on a tourist visa and do not meet one of the exemptions. Sure non-immigrants are persons but federal law doesn't give a fuck.

The second amendment is one of the few exceptions rather than the rule. It is difficult to argue for inclusion in "the people" who have the right to bear arms when excluded from selective service and from the definition of the unorganized militia.

By your logic women unaffiliated with service are excluded then. The unorganized militia, by US code, is (you can look up the code but this is pretty close) basically able bodied military age male citizens.

Throwing in all these constraint when the constitution clearly say "the people" without qualification which magically means basically everyone one place but not most everyone somewhere else seems kind of arbitrary to me, but then again the courts seem to have held up visitors aren't people so hey. This is why I'm not a lawyer because really such fuckery makes my brain melt. If I were the sole sitting justice of the supreme court I'd say the qualification is a person is one unit of people and thus they have the rights of the people. IMO if you're one of "the people" then when the constitution uses "the people" unqualified elsewhere that's you -- which by symmetry means if you can't own a gun you're not a person and have none of the other rights of the people.

State law in the state where I live defines the unorganized militia without regard to sex.

At least the 7th circuit agrees with you, (United States v. Meza-Rodriguez) even if there are other federal appeals circuits that don't. So this is something that will likely go to the Supreme Court eventually.

FWIW the courts have ruled in favor of non-citizens challenging states denying them the right to own firearms before, e.g.:

https://casetext.com/case/state-v-ibrahim

Granted, this is a Washington State court ruling on the basis of the WA state constitution (which has a stronger RKBA provision than the federal one). But there were similar rulings in other states, and if I remember correctly, at least one of them cited the federal constitution.

As far as the "exemptions" go, it might simply be that nobody ever challenged them before - I mean, as a non-immigrant alien who can get kicked out quite easily in any case, why would you go and antagonize the feds if you can just buy an Alaska hunting license online for $60 and make them happy that the requisite checkbox has a mark in it? But also, until Bruen, the courts tended to defer to various onerous licensing restrictions and requirements even for citizens.

That's a constitutional right, and rights belong to citizens, not persons...

The Bill of Rights makes no distinction between citizens and non-citizens in its text. It says that rights belong to people, not exclusively to citizens of the several States.

The Equal Protection clause protects citizens and non-citizens alike, e.g. Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365 (1971)

The first amendment protects aliens once they are admitted to the US, Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135 (1945)

There is a right to travel that is an extension of the first amendment rights to freedom of association and freedom of expression.

Thank you, I was not aware; I implicitly thought rights were only for citizens or naturalized persons.

I had the impression from the article that anyone could submit the form requesting information if they were so inclined; I just meant that most people probably only find out when they're denied. Then again, being 7 feet tall they might be doing you a favor.

If you really want to know shoot me an email.

No, stop. I want to believe this is bad. Stop commenting with facts.

haha. Indeed. You can probably find out about your No-Fly-List status without even going to the airport. The US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) administers a number of different sanctions programs. I put together an excel workbook (see [0]) that contains data from OFAC's Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN). The SDN dataset is available from the US Department of the Treasury website [1]. OFAC also provides all non-SDN sanctions lists in a consolidated set of data files labeled the "Consolidated Sanctions List" (CONS) [2]. The CONS dataset is also included in this workbook. OFAC also maintains a Blocked Persons List (SDN) which is not included here. OFAC Sanctions Lists can be searched [3] and accessed via ftp [4]. I've also included a direct link to the Traveler Redress Inquiry Program here [5].

It's interesting to google the entities listed under "CYBER" (see the sdn_cyber tab in the excel workbook).

[0] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t7QPqgvkNp42zejlBBxi...

[1] https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/...

[2] https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/...

[3] https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov

[4] ftp://ofacftp.treas.gov.

[5] https://www.dhs.gov/dhs-trip

I think you may not be reading the parent comment correctly. They're saying that those on the list have a right to privacy, therefore outright leaking the list is wrong. Being able to find out whether or not you are on the list is not incompatible with maintaining others' right to privacy.

I am reading it correctly. They do not have a right to privacy, because we all have the right to know who the government is keeping on lists. Regardless the line of thinking reeks with hypocrisy - the government of the United States has been doing nothing but trampling privacy, yet when it comes to top secret government surveillance state programmes they hold it close to their chests

I don't understand your reasoning. To me, you seem to be saying that since the state violated everyone's privacy, the general public now has the right to violate these individuals' privacy even further to get back at the state.

Publishing the list as-is would also imply that you believe the state is infallible and can't err when putting people on this list. There are thousands of people out there who have redress numbers because they have the same name as someone on the list. Can you imagine if getting a redress number is necessary for employment? Leaking the list would ironically increase the state's control.

(edit: Again, I'm not disagreeing with letting individuals find out if they themselves are on the list, just disagreeing with the method)

> They do not have a right to privacy

What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you understand the repercussions of it being found someone is on a no-fly list (because we all know the US government makes mistakes).

> those on the list have a right to privacy, therefore outright leaking

Those Americans on list have a right to question their accuser in court before a right (to travel) is restricted. When did we agree to suspend due process, 14th amendment?

And then, what, some hapless person on there gets doxxed and some red neck asshole rolls up on their house and shoots them cause ‘Merica? After 9/11 we had these idiots killing brown people left and right just because “they could be terrorists.”

Don’t be so naive. Lists of people are almost inherently dangerous things. I don’t like that a no-fly list exists in the first place but it would be completely irresponsible to just publish it and wash your hands of it.