The U.S. government is putting Americans on its no-fly list on a hunch | Hacker News Reader

The U.S. government is putting Americans on its no-fly list on a hunch

slate.com

15 pointslisper6 comments

Well, heck. That's the only way they can do it. Any other way would offend someone's sense of political correctness.

Oh, please. They could actually have published criteria, you know, stuff like "convicted of such and such", or "passport from Yemen, North Korea, etc". It's only "political correctness" of the Deep State kind that allows this sort of rubbish - too dangerous to fly, but not dangerous enough to arrest or charge? How does that happen?

Besides, if the TSA/DHS went with anti-politically correct criteria, like say, Arabic style names, or attending a mosque or wearing a turban, even a total idiot will be able to find a Terrorist Sympathizer who's white, female, got a German-sounding name, and convince them to carry more than 4 oz of liquid through the nudatron in their hollowed-out shoes. Even dumber people will figure out that it's obvious you can circumvent the stupid theatre that anti-PC criteria would cause.

I bet the truth is more like the incentives that DHS has. It's better to keep anyone even faintly seeming or associated or accused of "terrorism" or similar things on a watch list, because then, when something bad happens, they've "done what they can".

> It's only "political correctness" of the Deep State kind that allows this sort of rubbish - too dangerous to fly, but not dangerous enough to arrest or charge? How does that happen?

Counterpoint: there's no reason there couldn't be an overlap between Deep State political correctness and the normal kind. After all, once one has made one's criteria for the no-fly list arbitrary, random and unjust, why not have them promote one's politics as well?

But that being said, you're on the money, it's the incentives. There's no incentive to make people's lives less inconvenient and more just, there's every incentive to not look bad in the media next time there's a terrorist attack.

> How does that happen?

Sorry, friend. I can't explain anything happening in the US government.

Perhaps the problem is that the way they're doing it violates citizens' basic freedoms.

I honestly don't see how their ouija board method violates freedoms. I think it's ineffective and dimwitted, but I don't think the method violates anything since it isn't based on hard data.

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