Name on government watch list threatens pilot's career

I'm sure there are people (like this pilot) who have had problems but it is severely overblown (what isn't?) in the media.
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Exactly, the list overall is a good idea but occasionally some mistakes are made.
 
So, you're saying that being on the watch-list is the equivilant of being charged with a crime? That's the way it sounds if you must appear before a judge or jury to prove your innocence (or for the gov't to prove your guilt). If the gov't has sufficient evidence to "suspect him of being a terrorist" then why are they not charging him? Or is mere suspicion sufficient reason to drag people into court in your fantasy world?

In your scary fantasy world, many members of this forum could not fly on business as required by their employer. If your employer has a need to send you to another city for your job - a requirement you cannot meet - you could potentially lose your job. All based on mere suspicion or a common name
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Suspicion is enough evidence to be arrested, monitored or charged with a crime, if you buy enough bomb making materials but never build the bomb the government can certainly monitor/arrest you and you should be able to have that ability.

I don't support waiting until people are dead to taken action, preemptive steps must be taken - I think 99% of America would agree.
 
Suspicion is enough evidence to be arrested, monitored or charged with a crime, if you buy enough bomb making materials but never build the bomb the government can certainly arrest and you should be able to arrest you.

I don't support waiting until people are dead to taken action, preemptive steps must be taken.
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So I guess your one of those people who believe's in thought crimes. I am glade I will not live in the United States you want.
 
So I guess your one of those people who believe's in thought crimes. I am glade I will not live in the United States you want.
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A thought is a thought, a thought which you take action on is a potential crime.

We need to attempt to intercept the person while they are in the transition stage from thought to realization of their goals. I would say buying a large amount of bomb making material is a good enough indicator that its time to intervene.
 
Saab1911
Senior Member


Frankly, I don't care. If it takes profiling to keep us safe and keep planes
from flying into buildings, so be it.

Saab 1911:

Find below a very brief post from another member. I suggest that you take a moment to read what is said, and think on it.




Antipitas
Staff


Join Date: 2000-06-29
Location: Rupert, Idaho
Posts: 3,959
"...and when they came for me..."
__________________
Al Norris
 
peetzakilla alleged in post #10 that it was simple and easy to get one's name removed from the no-fly list.

That doesn't square with this article, which talks about how difficult (impossible) it could be to accomplish...but a very recent court ruling may make it easier.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/08/watch-listed--1.html

Watch-Listed Fliers Can Sue, Appeals Court Rules

By Ryan Singel

Airline passengers on the government's no-fly list can sue the government to get their names removed, according to a federal appeals court ruling Monday that swept aside complicated judicial rules that insulated the government from lawsuits over the sprawling list of suspected terrorists.

The decision (.pdf) marks the first time that an individual has been allowed to use the court -- rather than a form mailed to a Homeland Security office -- to contest their inclusion in the nation's secret anti-terrorism database. In a recent interview, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said such court reviews would destroy the watch lists and lead to another hijacking like 9/11. Those who continually run up against the list describe the experience of trying to figure out how to get off the list as Kafkaesque.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided 2-1 to overturn a lower court dismissal of the case on jurisdiction grounds. The lower court found that Congress protected the Transportation Security Administration's aviation safety orders from legal challenges in district court, and that the case had to be filed in the court of appeals first. That essentially blocks any plaintiff from calling witnesses and subpoenaing documents -- leaving them with only the possibility of challenging the constitutionality of the order itself.

That notion struck Chief Judge Alex Kozinski as nonsensical:

Just how would an appellate court review the agency’s decision to put a particular name on the list? There was no hearing before an administrative law judge; there was no notice-and-comment procedure. For all we know, there is no administrative record of any sort for us to review. ... (the process of maintaining the No-Fly List is opaque). So if any court is going to review the government’s decision to put Ibrahim’s name on the no-fly list, it makes sense that it be a court with the ability to take evidence.

Kozinski, joined by James Otero, found instead that the TSA's no-fly and selectee lists were compiled and maintained by another agency -- the Terrorist Screening Center -- that wasn't protected, so the challenge can proceed. Judge Randy Smith dissented, saying Congress clearly wanted to protect the TSA from such suits.

The case arose after a Malaysian woman studying at Stanford attempted to fly from San Francisco to Malaysia in January 2005, but United Airlines identified Rahinah Ibrahim as being on the no-fly list. The airline contacted the police, who called the TSA's intelligence service. There an employee named John Bondanella told police to detain and question Ibrahim, and call the FBI. Ibrahim was handcuffed in front of her 14-year-old daughter and taken to the police station, where she was held for two hours until the FBI called to say let her go.

Ibrahim is suing the feds, United Airlines, San Francisco county and a number of individuals. She is also seeking an injunction to have her name removed from the list.

The appeals court, overturning the lower court, is also allowing Ibrahim to sue Bondanella personally. She alleges that his order to detain her violated her constitutional rights, since the no-fly list is not a list of wanted terrorists, but rather a list of people suspected of being too dangerous to board a plane.
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Suspicion is enough evidence to be arrested, monitored or charged with a crime, if you buy enough bomb making materials but never build the bomb the government can certainly monitor/arrest you and you should be able to have that ability.

I don't support waiting until people are dead to taken action, preemptive steps must be taken - I think 99% of America would agree.
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I think you percentage is far too high.

Suspicion is cause to investigate or to look further. No more than that. One cannot be charged for because police suspect that you may be about to commit a crime. It may be enough to get a search warrant, but not to make an arrest.

You refer to bomb-making materials... that's fine, but show me where the pilot in the OP was "suspected" of having any of them. Or doing anything overt or covert that might support our enemies.

I think most U.S. Citizens would require more than casual links, such as... married a Pakistani woman + she's Muslim + he coverted to Islam [to get married perhaps?] + he's a pilot.... what does that get you? Very little. None of those things by itself or in combination rises to even the level of being suspicious.

For what it's worth, I went to the hardware store and bought some 2-ft sections of pipe, pipe caps, a box of batteries, a spool of 12ga wire, wire nuts, two boxes of carpet tacks and a 13 pound bag of fertilizer... no federal authorities coming to track me down, the hardware store folks didn't bat and eye either. Why? Simply because all of these items are legal and possession of them in this or some various other combinations is also legal.
[I should also point out that all of it was purchased for perfectly legitimate uses too.]

But in your Orwellian utopia, the police would have been alerted and I would have spent some time being interrogated. I'd rather live in a free society, thank you. And yes, I'll take the risk that something "bad" might happen because people's liberties are respected.
 
peetzakilla alleged in post #10 that it was simple and easy to get one's name removed from the no-fly list.
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It is simple. Easy is based on my experience. No person I ever saw whose name was on the list had any problem getting it removed. It took a couple weeks at most. One guy got his name cleared up in a couple hours and had nothing more than a missed flight for the trouble.
I also stated that I am certain that there are people, like this pilot, who had a nightmare getting it done.

Next time your at an airport find a TSA supervisor and ask them what to do if your name is mistakenly on the no fly list. They should have a small stack of paperwork they can give you and a phone number to call. In my experience that's all it takes.
 
Suspicion is cause to investigate or to look further. No more than that. One cannot be charged for because police suspect that you may be about to commit a crime. It may be enough to get a search warrant, but not to make an arrest.
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They can arrest you assuming they find other evidence, if they don't its very likely that they will continue to watch you just to be on the safe side. Assuming you purchased those items for legitimate purposes and don't have any plans to bomb a building, they certainly aren't going to be interested in you.

Bomb making materials + evidence of research into explosives construction + blueprints of government buildings or other information regarding potential targets + affiliations with radical groups or individuals who have active plans to attack or destroy America.

Thats a combination the FBI or NSA would defiantly be interested in. A bomb does not have to be present, only evidence that one was planing to build a bomb and use it against the Government or US citizens.

Its the same reason its illegal for a civilian to posses or make a M-16 auto sear(without proper paperwork) if you own a fire-arm which it can be placed in. The only logical reason for you owning that part is to create an illegal select fire weapon.

I think most U.S. Citizens would require more than casual links, such as... married a Pakistani woman + she's Muslim + he coverted to Islam [to get married perhaps?] + he's a pilot.... what does that get you? Very little. None of those things by itself or in combination rises to even the level of being suspicious
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We really need to know more about the wife, she might have ties to these groups or she may have even used him to come here. I don't know her background. Him converting to Islam shows that she may have significant influence over him, which means if she did want to do harm she may be able to brain wash him into doing it. I don't know enough about the specifics.

It would be great if we could all get along, and never have to worry about those wanting to do us harm.
Sadly that is not the case, if this man is innocent, which it looks like - I hope he can resolve all the problems this may have caused him and I hope the rest of his life is filled with joy.
 
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We really need to know more about the wife, she might have ties to these groups or she may have even used him to come here.
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Set aside the equivocation over an easy target like a converted Muslim and try to find excuses for other cases.

Airline captain, lawyer, child on terror 'watch list'

James Robinson is a retired Air National Guard brigadier general and a commercial pilot for a major airline who flies passenger planes around the country. He has even been certified by the Transportation Security Administration to carry a weapon into the cockpit as part of the government's defense program should a terrorist try to commandeer a plane. But there's one problem: James Robinson, the pilot, has difficulty even getting to his plane because his name is on the government's terrorist "watch list."
...
It turns out that three people named "James Robinson" found their names on the list in early 2005. Besides the airline pilot, there's the James Robinson who served as U.S. attorney in Detroit, Michigan, and as an assistant attorney general in the Clinton administration; and James Robinson of California, who loves tennis, swimming and flying to the East Coast to see his grandmother. He's 8.
...
All the Robinsons are enrolled in frequent-flyer programs, and all have filled out the paperwork that Chertoff said is an easy way to get them off the watch list. But it has been three years since all three James Robinsons filled out those forms, and their cases have yet to be resolved.
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This is the type of oppression that one would expect from a totalitarian state - secret lists of state enemies, guilty until proven innocent, determination of guilt without due process, and until very recently, not even any recourse to due process.
 
How many times have we seen on this site, in various threads: "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about"? Apparently this couple has done nothing wrong, but they definitely have something to worry about.
I guess I can expect that we will never hear that argument again, right? HA! Or should I say Baaaaaa?
 
I think risking a couple incidents like this is worth it if it makes us significantly safer,
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is a far cry from "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

September 11 happened because the people on those planes trusted in the government to protect them. The belief at the time was that if passengers and crew just did what they were told all would be well. If they had fought back some would probably have died, but not thousands.
The government cannot guarantee each individual's safety, but governments duty is to defend each individuals liberty.
 
There's an ugly psychological component to the 'no fly list.' In reality, the 'list' is all but totally useless in regard to stopping 'terrorists.' A real 'terrorist' isn't going to be on the list or stopped by the list. If one goes back and looks at the history of hijackings and bombings on airliners, one is struck by the number of cases where the perpetrator would not have been caught by a 'no fly list.'


So what's the purpose of the 'no fly list?' It's a kind of 'crowd control' manipulation ie. it makes people feel like they are safer when in fact they aren't really safer. So who is the 'no fly list' actually catching? It's catching
lots of innocent people...and whenever anybody is caught, the publicity
of anybody caught makes the list look like it is doing something...and it's
irrelevant to the functioning of the 'no fly list' that the actual person ensnared was innocent.


It's a classic abuse of power, and it creates a huge government bureaucracy
that won't go away. I have a relative who is constantly made to undergo a strip search before boarding an airliner.Her crime? She has an Eastern European passport. It's weird ie. she's obviously not a threat and the people doing the search know she's not a threat - but here's a 50yr.old school teacher<not even muslim or from one of the countries associated with islam>jumping through strange hoops at the airport because the U.S.government simply has the power to do so. It gives the people in the line next to her the feeling that 'something' is going on to make us all safer.:barf:


She had to fill out some immigration paperwork awhile back for permanent residency status. The paperwork asks 'Are You now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party...' What's weird is that the paperwork does not ask one question about radical islam or Osama, but asks all these weird questions from 50yr.s ago or so as if Stalin was still alive... I have little confidence in the Govt.


She had trouble with the immigration/visa paperwork initially because she was deemed to be at risk of staying in the country. Why?
Because she speaks fluent english,is educated and has no children. Our wonderful Government considers her not a risk, if she speaks no english and has lots of children. The government's upsidedown logic - is that people who speak english and have no children are likely to stay in the country, but uneducated people with lots of children back home are likely to return home.
Hmmmmmmm.


Her visa was delayed several months<almost 1 year>because the wonderful government had a backlog of amnesty/immigration cases of people who did not speak english, who did not fill out the paperwork and who had quite a few children... Good thing they were in that 'low risk' group! Yeah I have a lot of confidence in the 'no fly list.' This is the same government that says if my income is only $35k I can't bring more than 'eleven' children into the country because I would fail to meet the poverty guidelines...

:barf:
 
He's on a watch list.
So what.
That should mean that he is a guy to 'watch'.

What does that have to do with his ability to complete his work?
Its not the 'list' that is at fault for his job loss. It is his employers.
 
We really need to know more about the wife
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Actually no, we don't.

Whatever happened to land of the free and the home of the brave?

Go on, get on a plane, I dare ya. Sit beside a muslim without crapping your pants.
 
Actually no, we don't.

Whatever happened to land of the free and the home of the brave?
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We do need to know in order to really make a decision in this matter and being brave doesn't mean you take pointless risks. I certainly understand why he may have ended up on the list through affiliation from his wife and a combination of other factors which we don't know about.

I don't support the governments ability to put someone on a list which prevents them from doing something without giving them proper recourse or having the ability to see what they are on it for - no one would say the government can exist without checks and balances. Conversely you need to look at the threats towards this nation.

I don't know the correct answer to this question, I am trying to look at it from both points of view. I understand how it can be abused, I also understand how it could prevent another 9/11(if implemented properly).

Again its really unfortunate that we have to make these choices, I hope the future will be more peaceful then the past.
 
S832 said:

. . . conversely you need to look at the threats towards this nation . . .

The major threat to this nation as I see it is the erosion of our constitutional liberties under the guise of "protecting" us from terrorists. And its both the Bush Admin, the Repubs and the spineless Dems fault. Terrorist attack happened - Bush and Co. proposed sweeping new "protections" - Repubs beat the war drums - Dems went along with it :barf: :barf:

I for one would rather see terrorist attacks happen (even if it kills myself and my loved ones) than erode the liberties and premises that this great nation was founded upon. If that happens, they've won.

All it takes is for one savvy, power-hungry individual to keep expanding on these "protective" acts and whoops! you've got a police state.

Now if you'd excuse me, I have the Thought Police knocking at my door. Wonder what they want now :rolleyes: . . . .
 
What if being on a list meant you couldn't exercise your second amendment rights? Would you trust the bureaucrats then?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/154913

By the way, I am a faceless bureaucrat. There are a lot of people I work with I wouldn't trust to walk a dog properly. Thanks for your faith in mine and their judgement.
 
Sorry but you shouldn't lose rights for who you are or what you might do. Due process, innocent until proven guilty, habeus corpus, all that.

There's been a lot of talk about giving the FBI access to NICS so that they can track gun purchases by so-called "terror suspects". They're not going to look at the rest of us. Honest. :rolleyes:

There's been a lot of talk about adding terror suspects to the NICS. You won't be able to buy a gun if you're on the list and no one will have the oversight to make sure they take you off the list.

For the first time in 232 years a single federal bureacracy will be able to arbitrarily decide whether you can own a gun or not.

You worried about whether you're safe or not? You're not any safer from the terrorists- they hardly ever use guns anyway, bombs are more their style, and thos work with some fairly innocuous compounds. And you're sure as hell less safe from attacks from your own government.

So what exactly are you going to gain with this terror watch list?
 
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