Boarding? Denied. Lock and Loading? Sure.

[groovedaddy]

Here is a chilling and potentially lethal fact of life: A person on the F.B.I.’s terrorist watch list is barred from boarding an airplane yet is quite free to buy high-power firearms and ammunition at any American gun shop.

This bizarre “terror gap” is starkly underlined by the latest federal data showing that 272 individuals on the terrorist watch list attempted to buy firearms last year, and all but 25 were cleared to make purchases. Those rejected had records for criminal felonies, spousal violence and other threats stipulated in federal gun controls that still don’t use the terrorist watch list as a red-flag caution.

The administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama wanted to rectify the situation, proposing that the attorney general be given authority to block gun sales to those on the list, after they were investigated and deemed suspicious under careful guidelines. But successive Congresses rejected reform bills — cowering as usual before the gun lobby, which deemed it an “arbitrary” interference with its never-to-be-trumped right to bear arms.

The watch list is ever a work in progress and innocent citizens have too often complained of being barred from flying. But this shortcoming has nothing to do with the dangerous loophole that Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, and Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, are again trying to close.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/opinion/09mon3.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211

[slackmaster]

1. It's wrong to deny people any civil right without due process of law

That includes owning firearms and boarding planes.

[groovedaddy]

3. "Due process of law" is so passe' isn't it? n/t

[Buzz Clik]

7. When did boarding a plane become a civil right?

[TheWraith]

9. Since the doctrine of unenumerated rights.

The bill of rights also doesn't say anything about the civil rights status of abortion, sodomy, or which kind of fruit punch you like. And yet, all are protected.

[Buzz Clik]

10. Try carrying a gallon of fruit punch into a movie theater.

Care to engage in sodomy on the front steps of the Capitol?

The gunsters have lost their way.

[slackmaster]

14. The movie theater is private property. People who enter are subject to rules imposed by the owner.

Sodomy on the front steps of the Capitol has been banned through due process of law.

The gunsters have lost their way.

Petty insults have no place in this forum.

[Buzz Clik]

25. And an airplane is public property?

This isn't working.

[slackmaster]

31. You seem quite confused. The owners of the airplane aren't the ones stopping people from boarding.

Government agents are doing that, without due process of law.

[Buzz Clik]

43. Yeah. So, let's challenge that in the Supreme Court, shall we?

[slackmaster]

46. I don't have standing to do that

Do you?

[Euromutt]

51. The ACLU's been working on that

Latif et al. v. Holder http://www.aclu.org/national-security/latif-et-al-v-holder-et-al-aclu-challenges-government-no-fly-list

[notesdev]

13. The right to free travel has a long history

it's a pretty solid right as rights go, but one being ignored by this increasingly fascist administration

[Buzz Clik]

22. Utter bullshit, but nice try.

[slackmaster]

32. How about Article 13 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a13

[Buzz Clik]

42. Oh. I guess that means I can take your car right now and drive some place.

Do you honestly believe this? I'm serious. Do you believe what you're typing, because I really want to know.

[slackmaster]

45. You have the right to do anything that hasn't been prohibited through due process of law

That's what I'm saying.

Taking my car without my permission has been prohibited by due process of law.

[notesdev]

34. Bite my Wikipedia skillz

As far back as the circuit court ruling in Corfield v. Coryell, 6 Fed. Cas. 546 (1823), the Supreme Court recognized freedom of movement as a fundamental Constitutional right

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_United_States_law

P.S. What seasoning should I put on the crow?

[slackmaster]

15. Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

[Buzz Clik]

23. You be sure to show me where it talks about the right to board airplanes.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

28. Rights...

Amendment 9: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Amendment 10: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

[friendly_iconoclast]

29. I remind you that Woolworth lunch counters were private property, as well.

Are you sure you want to go that route?

[slackmaster]

33. I think you're being intentionally obtuse

Show me where the government has the power to stop people from boarding planes without due process of law.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

24. re: When did boarding a plane become a civil right?

It isn't. Those that own the plane make the rules.
Once the plane is opened to public service, public laws govern.

Boarding a plane with a loaded pistol, assault rifle, samurai sword or morning star is not a problem...as long as you OWN the plane.

If you want to board a commercial flight while carrying a gun, you had better either be a federal officer or you may have to draw and use the weapon in order to make it to the gate.

[Buzz Clik]

26. You clearly haven't been posting here long enough to have lost your mind.

And thank you.

Welcome to DU.

Clean cups! Clean cups!

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

30. Ty...I think...

[Buzz Clik]

44. My pleasure.

You'll find that discussions in certain forums dance along the edge of sound reason, and other take the plunge into raw emotionalism. The "gungeon" is among the latter.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

47. Ty for the heads up.

[Incitatus]

2. You can't restrict a person's constitutional rights without due process.

So until they prove to a court why a person should be on the list in the first place..

[X_Digger]

4. Screw the old zombie. Due process, it's what's for dinner.

Why was the Boosh supah-sekrit terrah list such a bad thing when shrub was president, but it's A-Okay when it comes to guns?

[friendly_iconoclast]

19. They NEVER answer that question, no matter how often it's asked.

Another one they don't answer:

Did you think these lists were okay all along, or did you change your mind when some allegedly bright spark decided to add "buy a

gun" to the nono list?

[DonP]

5. Here we go again

An unconstitutional act that deprives US Citizens of due process put in place by Bush/Cheney is being embraced by some progressives and an asshole that is Lautenburg, because they want to use it to ban gun sales.

No one knows how a person gets on the list, there is no way to challenge being on the list and no due process to appear in a court to have your name removed.

When Bush/Cheney ran the program everyone, including the NYT screamed, and rightfully so.

Now since they see it as one way to block firearm sales, it's all of a sudden a great idea. That's a hell of a heap of hypocrisy.

But I expect the usual suspects to appear here and embrace another foul Bush/Cheney policy as "common sense" gun control.

[lawodevolution]

6. Why should anyone on the terror watch list be allowed to communicate on the Internet or phone

Let's also cancel their vote and right to practice a religion

If we allow a black list to take away rights the government will simply place anyone they don't like on the list. We would be just another banana republic.

[petronius]

41. If those people were in Guantanamo, none of those things would be problems

:sarcasm:

It just boggles my mind when liberals so casually abandon principle and thought when the topic is guns...

[TheWraith]

8. Even more chilling. Many DUers embrace the Bush Terra Watch List as long as it's about guns.

Apparently an illegal, unsupervised, unconstitutional list maintained in secret with no accountability is only bad when it's about something they don't approve of.

[eqfan592]

11. Forget the DU'ers...

...though you are spot on there. The very person that wrote the editorial in question pretty much openly admits to feeling that way.

[friendly_iconoclast]

20. I notice few (if any) of them stick around to defend the BTWL when challenged.

They don't even have the courage of their purported convictions.

[one-eyed fat man]

12. Orwell had it right...

Some pigs are more equal than others.

"...innocent citizens have too often complained of being barred from flying. But this shortcoming has nothing to do with the dangerous loophole that Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, and Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, are again trying to close."

Who cares if innocent people are denied the right to buy a gun? Lautenberg doesn't want anyone to have one, they are all to be denied as far as you and he are concerned.

Maybe you could do something, so we'd all know who you disapprove of; make them wear a badge, or sew something on their clothes or something. Unconstitutional watch lists, warrantless wire taps, National Security Letters, which allow the government to obtain financial records and other sensitive information held by Internet Service Providers, banks, credit companies, and telephone carriers—all without appropriate judicial oversight—also impose a gag order on recipients...all this hateful right-wing usurpation of power is EVIL, unless it's used against potential gun-owners when it suddenly becomes the most progressive and common sense idea since Zyklon-B.

[Remmah2]

16. So 8 year olds on the no-fly list are allowed to buy firearms?

Go figure.

[ManiacJoe]

38. There are no children on the no-fly list.

Children cannot legally buy firearms.
You knew both of these facts, right?

[Euromutt]

49. If the NYT is to be believed, yes

Though if you believe the NYT editorial board's claims in this piece, I have some beachfront property in Wyoming I'd like to sell you.

[GreenStormCloud]

17. The irony is that genuine terrorist suspects are kept off the list.

Learning that their names are on the list could alert them that they are being watched, so to prevent that their names aren't on the list.

[beevul]

18. I guess they - and some here - forgot that Ted Kennedy was on that list. N/T

[ileus]

21. Watch list consists of whome? DU members? Tea Baggers? Ex-military?

[Euromutt]

50. All of the above and none; the lists only contain names, no unique identifying information

If your name is Mohamed Ibrahim, you're on the list.
If your name is John Shaw, you're on the list.
If your name is Michelle Green, you're on the list.
If your name is David Nelson, you're on the list.
If your name is Cat Stevens, you're on the list.
If your name is "T. Kennedy," you're on the list.
There are tens of thousands of names, possibly over a million, on the list.

It doesn't matter which Mohamed Ibrahim, John Shaw, Michelle Green, etc. you are, because the list doesn't contain identifying information like date of birth, physical description, even sex/gender. If your name matches one on either list, you can get hassled.

Though in one instance, a guy's name was placed on the list after the TSA found gunpowder residue on his boots. The fact that he was a marine reservist returning from a tour in Iraq at the time, and that the boots in question were his uniform boots, didn't seem to factor into the TSA's decision to put him on the list. It made things problematic for him when he came back from Iraq the second time.

[Glassunion]

53. I remember that guy...

His fellow Marines refused to continue home to see their families without him. They waited for over an hour for him to be cleared before they continued on home.

John Shaw = 2,947 living in America with that name...
Michelle Green = 1,241
David Nelson = 5,650
T. Kennedy = 64 + 122 + 3 + 116 + 1,373 + etc

Some others on the list from the wiki...
Daniel Brown = 7,816 (The Marine we are discussing)
Robert Johnson = 33,853
Sam Adams = 1,255
John Lewis = 9,685

So we have 8 names on a list who roughly equate to over 64,000 Americans. It would be interesting to know how many Americans are effected by this list? If 8 = 64,000 what does almost 1 million equal?

"In October 2008, the Washington Post reported that Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent political activists as terrorists, and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases, with labels indicating that they were terror suspects. The protest groups were also entered as terrorist organizations. During a hearing, it was revealed that these individuals and organizations had been placed in the databases because of a surveillance operation that targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war."

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

http://howmanyofme.com/

[krispos42]

27. If they can take away 2nd Amendment rights...

...they can take away 4th Amendment rights.


"Oh, groovedaddy, I see you've been posting seditious material on DU. We're putting you on the Terrorist Watch List. *click* Done. Okay, now we'll be searching your house without a warrant. And your emails, records, computers, books, credit cards, bank accounts... and you. Now that you're on the Watch List, we don't need a warrant or even a 'National Security Letter'. Hell, we don't even need to sneak around behind your back. Open your mouth for this cotton swab, then bend over while I get the rubber gloves. If you're compliant, I'll even use lubricant."

[TPaine7]

35. You're too kind. Much too kind.

:evilgrin:

[groovedaddy]

37. I been on government lists since the 70s. Fortunately, they haven't stopped me from flying. n/t

[TPaine7]

36. The New York Times is becoming less and less relevant. This editorial matters

only to the gullible, the uninformed, and the desperate losers who will sacrifice any principle to keep people from having guns.

Fascists are a very low form of life.

[Glassunion]

39. Did not read the article. The first "fact" in the article is not a fact at all.

"A person on the F.B.I.’s terrorist watch list is barred from boarding an airplane"

That author is not telling the truth. Folks whose names are on the watch-list fly all the time, every single day thousands of times a day. Ted Kennedy flew quite frequently. His name was on the watch list.

The author of the article has no credibility.

[DonP]

40. Think of this as a big, fat wet French kiss to Dick Cheney from the NYT

The list was a pure Bush/Cheney idea, and it seems to he NYT and a few folks around here are still embracing it.

So the editorial people at the NYT have decided to give Cheney a big wet, French Kiss and tell him how wonderful he is for establishing this secret list ... as long as they can use it to surpress gun ownership. it's worth it.

I wonder how they feel about obvious violations of the 1st amendment by checking up on your library books and other reading matter? Obviously, anybody who reads Krugman might be an enemy of the state. Maybe we should just lock Krugman and some of those other columnists up now for the good of everybody out there, just in case.

[Euromutt]

48. There are so many errors in this editorial, it's hard to know where to start

For accurate information on the Selectee List (aka "watch list") and No Fly List, see the ACLU's FAQ: http://www.aclu.org/national-security/frequently-asked-questions-about-no-fly-list

A person on the F.B.I.’s terrorist watch list is barred from boarding an airplane yet is quite free to buy high-power firearms and ammunition at any American gun shop.

* The "watch list" and "no fly list" are maintained by the TSA, not the FBI.
* There are no persons on the lists, only names; definitely tens of thousands of names, possibly over a million. These names are not accompanied by identifying information (date of birth, physical description, sex/gender, etc.), so that anyone who has a name that appears on either list may be hassled.
* A person whose name appears on the "watch list" is not barred from boarding a commercial passenger aircraft; that happens to people whose names appear on the No Fly List. Persons on the "watch list" are "merely" subjected to additional screening (i.e. they are watched).

Exhibit A: "Cat Stevens." The name "Cat Stevens" was placed on the "No Fly List" because it's a "known alias" (former stage name) of Yusuf Islam; however, because no identifying information was included, one person who wound up getting hassled was Catherine "Cat" Stevens, then wife (now widow) of late senator Ted Stevens (R-AK).
Exhibit B: "T. Kennedy." The inclusion of the name "T. Kennedy" on the list led to late senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) being hassled, along with, presumably, any number of people named Tamara, Tara, Theresa, Thomas, Timothy and Tobias Kennedy, among others).

Other names on the lists include: John Shaw, David Nelson, Michelle Green, Alexandra Hay, John Williams and Mohamed Ibrahim, to name but a handful. Remember David Nelson on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet? Yep, he got hassled too.

<...> the latest federal data showing that 272 individuals on the terrorist watch list attempted to buy firearms last year <...>

Wrong, because there are no individuals on the lists, only names! In other words, 272 people with names such as John Shaw, David Nelson, John Williams and "T. Kennedy" attempted to purchase firearms.

The watch list is ever a work in progress and innocent citizens have too often complained of being barred from flying. But this shortcoming has nothing to do with the dangerous loophole that Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, and Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, are again trying to close.

What?! What the fuck do you mean "this shortcoming has nothing to do with" the issue?! It has everything to do with this issue. You're advocating depriving American citizens of their civil liberties because their names--and only their names, nothing else, because there is nothing else--happen to match one of as many as million on some unaccountable, unconstitutional piece of shit list maintained by one of the most incompetent agencies in the federal government (and I do not use that description lightly) which Obama should have scrapped on his first day in office for the abomination against democracy and the rule of law that it is.

Well, that clinches it: what little respect I had left for the New York Times has evaporated utterly. Their fucking editorial board doesn't even know how, or care, to do the basic research needed to understand the most basic things about the Selectee and No Fly Lists. Every single reporter they employ could be Jayson Blair, and the editorial board wouldn't have the brains to notice.

[Glassunion]

52. Well said.