After seven years, exactly one person gets off the government no-fly list | Hacker News Reader

After seven years, exactly one person gets off the government no-fly list

arstechnica.com

253 pointsRougeFemme68 comments

This is tyranny sneaking up on us one "No-XYZ list" at a time.

They can put you on it for any reason (lets say you oppose one of the Govt. policies - Drone Bombings for example), you will be unable to find out why you are on said list or even if you are.

Since you cannot confirm that you are on said list you will not be able to get off it. Your life becomes that much more difficult.

Next you will be put on another "No ABC List" - rinse and repeat until you life is truly miserable with NO recourse (unless you can afford $4 Million) .

If this is not a textbook case for violation of the due process clause then we may as well throw out that whole deal.

American freedoms only apply to rich people.

Seriously if you are expected to have millions of dollars every time you have dispute with the government your freedoms are already gone.

Just the fact that patent trolls can easily kill business is proof enough that the entire legal system is completely broken extremely expensive to fix.

Why do Americans seem to think it's ok to pay ridiculous prices for medicine and law or that it's ok for a court case to take over 5 years to settle.

The rich vote with money and always get what they want

The middle classes vote at the polls and never get what they want

The poor vote with violence and sometimes get what they want

A brief summary of history

American freedoms only apply to rich people.

This sole example of getting off the list was a case of someone who was very NOT rich, getting pro bono legal help. It wasn't riches that led to this success.

You realize there was a value to that pro bono legal help, right? It easily could have been in the millions.

>getting pro bono legal help.

Riches by proxy.

It's death by a thousand cuts. Sure, freedom of expression, freedom to travel, freedom to do business, etc. are all on nominally on the books but today bureaucracies can target everything individually at once. How do you travel except by taking a plane, bus, train, or car, or using the public roads? How do you do business without a bank account? How do you manage your affairs without using the internet or the telephone or what-have-you?

It has been thrown out already. "... and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" may as well be erased. 4M and 8 years is not a petition it's a marathon.

Here is Eric Holder invoking state secrets privilege (DoJ was a defendant in the case, among many others), basically trying to kill the lawsuit outright (they invoked all sorts of laws and administrative orders around classified info, there are multiple overlapping systems):

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2014/02/holder...

Note in the same document, on page 8:

[DoJ] will not defend an invocation of the [state secrets] privilege in order to:

(i) conceal violations of the law, inefficiency, or administrative error;

(ii) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency of the United States Government;

[..]

or (iv) prevent or delay the release of information the release of which would not reasonably be expected to cause significant harm to national security.

Change you can believe in!

Bonus:

Based on my personal consideration of the matter, I have determined that the requirements for an assertion and defense of the state secrets privilege have been met in this case in accord with the September 2009 State Secrets Policy. I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.

""" Ben Wizner <snip> remarked at SXSW that problems with the no-fly list aren't going away; the world we're facing will look more like Kafka than Orwell. <snip>

Wizner said:

And I worry about a world—not a world that looks like Orwell. """

I have noticed a tendency for US-media to use "world" for things which are essentially US-only phenomena. (I have never heard of the equivalent of a no-fly list outside the US and UK). The same statement, but referring to "USA" instead of world, would carry more impact to US citizens reading it, might make (some of) them work on the cause. But saying "World" depersonalizes the problem, and distances all readers from it.

I have not seen this "USA is the World" tendency from media in other countries. Seems unique to US media.

For many US citizens, the country is their 'world.' They may never leave the country in their lifetime. On the other hand, it's much more difficult to call your own country 'the world' when you border three other countries in such a way that you can live in one, go our clubbing all night in the other, and then have breakfast the next morning in the third...

Exactly. Looking at it from both worlds, I don't think a European adequately understands how large a country like the US (or Canada for that matter) is. Likewise an American would never understand the smallness of being, say, a Luxembourg citizen and travelling to France within a day. Totally different worlds.

I always tell people to travel outside their comfort zones purely for this insight. One you experience how another culture lives it is hard to be close minded again.

I live in Brazil, a continent-sized country just like the US and I don't see this phenomenon here.

I don't think this is the problem.

I live in Canada. A significantly bigger country than the US.

I don't think of Canada as being the world, nor does anyone I know.

I think it actually has to do with the American media. It used to be worse. I remember seeing US news programs (we get them here in Canada) reporting on the weather, and they only showed the US. It was kind of funny, it was like weather patterns were dropping in from a void "up north".

The phenomenon only presents at 9 million km^2 and above. ;)

> Likewise an American would never understand the smallness of being, say, a Luxembourg citizen and travelling to France within a day.

Luxembourg even borders France, so you could "travel to France" in five minutes by just stepping over the border. Just like you could "travel to Mexico" .. or maybe that's a bit harder than five minutes because of border controls, maybe Canada? No?

And, Luxembourg is so tiny, if you'd spend a day travelling "from Luxembourg to France", I'd argue you actually spent max half an hour travelling "from Luxembourg to France", and the most part of your day travelling "in France" ;-)

Your point stands, of course.

For US citizens (the kind you describe, that will never go out) the world contains also lot of "evil countries", China, Mexico, ... Those countries are constantly on TV, so even if he cannot point at them on a map, they exist as part of "the world"

Making it a world issue may dilute the problem in their eyes and make it look like a world affair instead of a purely local policy.

The US is at war against drug, terror, ... The US is under the threats of the axis of evil. The US citizen live in a world (not-US) where he is denied flying, where his mails are spied, ... That's the common TV language. Seeing how little it takes to influence people thinking (eg: global warming is mocked because its name suggest temperature will be rising globally), this constant bashing must have an effect in the apathy of the US citizen against the slow erosion of their rights.

It's more than that though. Even if you never leave your country, be it the UK, Brasil, Canada, South Africa, Israel, or Japan, you're going to experience foreign media; American TV shows, movies, music, books, video games are everywhere.

If you're in the US, however, you generally only experience US media; in several cases, US remakes of popular foreign shows (House of Cards, The Office, etc.). A lot of foreign media you don't necessarily notice is foreign, and books, movie posters, and video game covers are modified for US audiences (some would claim 'dumbed down').

Americans only see America through the eyes of America, and the rest of the world through the eyes of America; for example, in Taken, Armenians are shown as kidnapping slave-trading murderers, after all our poor innocent white girls, and the French police chief is shown as a corrupt, indifferent traitor.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world sees the US and the rest of the world through American eyes, but they also see both through the eyes of their own media, which provides them with more of a balanced view, and lets (forces?) them to make at least some of their own decisions.

Might be. But I see some other phenomenon: The World is adopting more and more the bad things in the US but never the good things of it.

That one worries me.

Fortunately, so far, most countries have not adopted much of the American madness. With the exception of the UK, internal flights are a pleasure - simple metal detector, simple bag scan, and you're on your way. The US approach by the TSA gets more onerous every year and accomplishes nothing.

Personally I think this is down to a certain inexperience the US has with terrorism. We still believe the world can be "made safe". We believe that -reacting- to terrorism is warranted. (and of course everything is now a " terrorist act")

Most other countries have lived with terrorist behavior for decades or longer. They learned that it is precisely by not reacting that you fight back. They learned that no, the world is not safe, and you can get killed in a car accident today, or struck by lightning tomorrow, or indeed just by riding a bicycle. (more people die on bicycles than by terrorism - and more people in the US every MONTH die in cars than were killed on Sept 11.)

The US currently has a teenager response to terrorism, and it will take years before they mature to where the rest of the world is already at. Until then, just like with any teenager, you have to let it work its course. The experience of others is seldom learned -experience doesn't work like that.

I don't know what "most countries" you're on about. I flew around Europe. I had spoons, fruits, water confiscated and thrown out by whatever the European equivalent of TSA is.

In the Asias, I had an umbrella confiscated. I had prescription drugs threatened to be taken away until I paid the necessary bribe.

I see strong indications of the export of USA bureaucracy and "way of life" around the world. It's a very convenient excuse for tyrants everywhere. "The USA is doing it, and they're very successful!"

I of course did not only mean the no-fly list. In Germany they also adopted or at least politics are trying to adopt some stupid ideas about terrorism. For example storing telephone connection meta-data. It is a widespread knowledge, that such a thing does not help in preventing terrorism, but they try and try to force it through parliament.

Also in other areas, the US is always the biggest example. For example the managers in Germany always compare themselves in regards to the salaries of US managers. But when it goes to liability, they do no comparison (in Germany, you can as a manager do nearly anything and are not liable for anything). Also of course they do not compare their salaries to those of Japan -- because in Japan, the corporations are bigger and the managers get still much less.

I guess, when the meta-data storage is threw legislation, they could come up with Germany's own no-fly list ...

Source for the widespread knowledge?

Probably not widespread knowledge, but here you go:

http://www.heise.de/tp/news/Vorratsdatenspeicherung-zur-Terr...

Not just the media. I remember someone explaining the meaning of The World Series to me as a kid. I don't think the explanation helped me much.

"As explained in Alsup's opinion, the whole dispute stemmed from an errant check placed on a form filled out by FBI agent Kevin Kelly" This sounds very similar to what happened in the movie Brazil, where an errant fly resulted in the incarceration and death during interrogation of Mr. Archibald Buttle instead of the suspected "terrorist", Archibald Tuttle. Albeit the movie was an highly exaggerated and over-the-top evil bureaucracy, it's a disturbing parallel.

I once had something vaguely similar happen while registering a car, though obviously with much less drastic consequences. The registration management software was running on a PC with a touchscreen. As my registration was nearly complete, a fly landed exactly on the close button of the application window. All that happened in my case was the attendant had to repeat the application process.

Brazil is my favorite movie of all time because it was so prescient. It seemed exaggerated and over the top in its day, but nowadays it seems to me that everything in the film has actually come to pass. Alas.

> everything in the film has actually come to pass

everything but what the world so desperately needs: vigilante guerilla airco repairmen.

Sometimes fiction can only be topped by ... the reality.

It amazes me that legal costs aren't going to be definitely paid here. That alone makes this system almost impossible to appeal, pro-bono lawyers aren't likely to work on this issue after the first one or two high profile cases if there isn't a payout.

I can believe that a lawyer working on someone's case for 8 years can credit enough hours to build up to $3.5MM, that's reasonable.

I'm sure she (lawyer) won't let it go easily, as nobody should work for free, for 1 day, or 8 years. The good hope is that eventually couple years from now her bill will be kicked through different departments and different manager's hands, enough times that at some point someone will cut her a check. It may be settled for $1MM or something, but eventually I don't see why she shouldn't get paid and some judge sooner or later will rule some sense into it. Bad news is that she will get paid from mine and yours pocket. Hopefully, this will learn FBI something, but honestly I highly doubt it....

The problem here is that the conduct that led to the lawsuit must be intentional and exceptional in order for a court to be able to award attorney fees. While our laws made this an incredibly difficult situation to resolve, the conduct in this case consisted of a simple mistake made on a form by an FBI agent. Unfortunately, that was neither intentional nor exceptional, and thus doesn't meet the standard for a court to award attorney fees.

Surely the conduct should also include the government's egregious behavior during the case?

If in a regular civil suit, one of the parties spent several years lying and making shit up and had absolutely zero case when all was said and done, surely the judge would take whatever opportunity was available to penalize that party and make whole the other party?

Unfortunately, mounting an aggressive defense to a lawsuit isn't considered egregious in the eyes of the law.

Does that include witness tampering? One of the witnesses in the case was unable to appear in court because she was also mysteriously added to the no fly list.

The "simple mistake" was not the "intentional and exceptional" bad conduct here. The intentional and exceptional conduct was in not having a clear, transparent, and straightforward process for a person to find out they're on the list, find out exactly why, and appeal.

This is hypocritical. Any other defendent found to have committed what amounts to gross professional negligence that deprived someone of a basic right (freedom to move about) would be looking at some combination of (1) a revoked license, (2) severe damages, and (3) paying the harmed party's legal fees. The longer the US government continues this kind of hypocrisy the more it risks being replaced.

> intentional and exceptional

How obvious was it that it was a mistake by an FBI agent? Does the DOJ intentional defending a mistake count as exceptional enough?

I haven't been following the case closely, but the consensus (even in the view of the plaintiff and the judge) is that the agent misinterpreted the instructions for completing the form, which led to him marking the wrong box on it.

People aren't complaining about the mistake itself, but about the US government requiring Ibrahim to spent 8 years and $3.5 million dollars to correct the mistake. They could have done a review when the lawsuit was filed, and they could have agreed to settle the lawsuit after the mistake came to light during depositions. As far as we know, they didn't do either of those. That's what the gp is implying might be exceptional and worthy of awarding fees.

What I don't get is why the government even fought the case.

I can understand the idiotic bureaucracy that can make it impossible to challenge the list. But once you finally do challenge it - why would the government fight it?

I suspect the reason the case was fought was because of idiotic bureaucracy as well.

My suspicious is that there is an internal procedure to challenge any attempt to get off the list in court.

The only way to avoid that is to change the procedure (which of course is impossible to do from the outside without court intervention, since the bureaucracy has a policy to deny any information about their own procedures).

The "no fly" list does not mean you can't fly, it just means they're going to make your life difficult in the process.

My wife made the no fly list back when she was consulting with IBM a number of years ago. She was no longer allowed seat assignments, had to check in in person, and was always subjected to full swab testing and a pat down. She eventually made it off the list, but there was no telling what got her on it. When her tickets were printed, they would have no seat assignment and be covered with a number of large X's which was an indicator she was going to be subjected to search. We made a few assumptions as to her travel behavior that likely attributed.

She had purchased too many one way tickets and wouldn't cancel them if she had to re-schedule (as is the ways of consulting). There were also a few incidents of getting a cheaper ticket and skipping later segments.

Either way, it really puts a damper on travel when all you want to do is get in and sit down.

I don't think your wife was truly on the no-fly list. It sounds like your wife was flagged for additional screening due to her travel patterns. In the case of Ibrahim she flat out was not allowed to fly to the US.

You're right, she was on the "Secondary Security Screening Selection" according to Wikipedia:

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

Yeah I ended up getting a lot of additional screening when I was a contractor for the TSA, mostly because travel plans were often made at the last minute and I had a lot of one way tickets.

It is possible that the headline is incorrect.

According to the article,

> Last month, US District Judge William Alsup ruled that Ibrahim must be removed from the government's various watchlists. At Tuesday's hearing, a Department of Justice lawyer said that the government did not intend to appeal the ruling.

So we have an unchallenged order to remove the name. However, the article presents no evidence that Ibrahim's name has actually been removed from any lists.

> However, the article presents no evidence that Ibrahim's name has actually been removed from any lists.

Well, they can't say it was removed, because that would admit that she was on a list. /sarcasm

So we have an unchallenged order to remove the name. However, the article presents no evidence that Ibrahim's name has actually been removed from any lists.

Are you proposing that the US government is planning - as a matter of policy - to ignore that ruling? That's a pretty serious allegation, and one that isn't supported by the evidence in this case.

Planning? No. But have they implemented a system to guarantee compliance with such an order? Doubtful. It's almost assured, through the inefficiency of bureaucracy, with the help from the fallibility of humans, that this name will not be completely expunged for quite some time.

> Are you proposing that the US government is planning - as a matter of policy - to ignore that ruling?

No, I was simply saying that the headline is not supported by the article. Regardless of government policy & plans, a court order and compliance with that order are different things. Let's not conflate them.

However, I think the reply by delinka to your comment makes a good point.

It also says in the article that other names may have been removed, but the proceedings were handled privately.

When society needs to reduce liberty, we pass a law. When society needs to increase liberty, she often finds she must fight a war.

This is bureaucratic self-protection at work. Because taking her off might actually be the mistake, and she might turn out to actually be a terrorist after all. So no one wants to risk their job by doing it.

Better someone you don't know doesn't get to fly to the US than you lose your pension.

The judge in question, William Alsup is the same judge who was presiding over Oracle v Google, ruled that APIs are not patentable and learned Java in the process. He's quite a character.

It just does not speak for the implementation of a Democracy, when democratic principles are violated or corrupted, just because the system has to stand pressure (terrorism in this case).

Don't tell me about bill or rights or democracy anymore.

I guess this does not matter to the ignorant US society, because they don't understand that this is coming to all of us, these no-fly lists establish great precedence that US government can do whatever. As some might say, ignorance is a bliss, in this case it is more like a disaster.

> After seven years, exactly one person gets off the gov’t no-fly list

Sounds like they know what they're doing.

I firmly believe more [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] or else we're all [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]!

Wow, that's recursive -- downvoting (and thereby censoring) a comment satirizing censorship and redaction. I'm ok with that, since my comment could have been more explicit: did anyone else think it was weird that the thing the judge ordered the government to tell Dr. Ibrahim has been redacted? http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Screen...

No fly list == jobs program

Shame you can't crowdsource it. We could all vote up or down who gets no-fly'd.

That's a terrible idea. The problem here is lack of due process, not lack of transparency. (Yes, there is lack of transparency, but the reason that's bad is that it interferes with due process.)

shutting down congress one flight at a time?

The original suggestion was not 100% serious but that could be an entertaining side effect.

This story is being discussed based on some misinterpretations.

It does not sound like whether she was on a no fly list was relevant to the case per se. She was allowed to fly after the first time she was stopped at the airport. What happened later was that she was denied entry back into the US, a non-citizen.

While what happened is certainly wrong in this case, there is oodles of precent for it. Routinely, foreigners are denied entry into the US if e.g. the agent believes there's a high likelihood you plan to overstay your visa and live here illegally. Non-citizens have no right to enter the US, period.

It sounds like this was more "take me off your terrorist list so I can get back into the country" than "take me off the no-fly list".

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