Federal Judge Rules U.S. No-Fly List Violates Constitution
June 25th, 2014Via: Reuters:
The U.S. government’s no-fly list banning people accused of links to terrorism from commercial flights violates their constitutional rights because it gives them no meaningful way to contest that decision, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Anna Brown, ruling on a lawsuit filed in federal court in Oregon by 13 Muslim Americans who were branded with the no-fly status, ordered the government to come up with new procedures that allow people on the no-fly list to challenge that designation.
“The court concludes international travel is not a mere convenience or luxury in this modern world. Indeed, for many international travel is a necessary aspect of liberties sacred to members of a free society,” Brown wrote in her 65-page ruling.
“Accordingly, on this record the court concludes plaintiffs inclusion on the no-fly list constitutes a significant deprivation of their liberty interests in international travel,” Brown said.
The decision hands a major victory to the 13 plaintiffs – four of them veterans of the U.S. military – who deny they have links to terrorism and say they only learned of their no-fly status when they arrived at an airport and were blocked from boarding a flight.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought suit against the policy in 2010, argues that secrecy surrounding the list and lack of any reasonable opportunity for plaintiffs to fight their placement on it violates their clients’ constitutional rights to due process.
Of course it violates the constitution. The larger question that is not addressed by this ruling is whether the constitution is still in force in the current state of emergency.
The purpose of the pro-liberty verdict here is to probably give the people the idea that there is some semblance of fairness occurring in our judicial system, but, of course, the ruling will be overturned by a higher court, and all the people will say “Well the government tried to help us, but the threat of the ‘tourist’ must just be too great.”
Question: Why did they start searching all the people at the airports?
Answer: Because Bush thought they said there is a “War on Tourism”